


A Portrait of Kevin Price as a Young Mormon

by neverbirds



Series: A Portrait of Kevin Price [1]
Category: The Book of Mormon - Ambiguous Fandom, The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, Happy Ending, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-08 10:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 45,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10384335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverbirds/pseuds/neverbirds
Summary: “Get lost,” says Connor, smiling. “We are nineteen years old, we have our whole lives ahead of us. Screw secure futures. It’s about here and now, right?”Kevin nods. “Latter Day doesn’t mean afterlife, it means tomorrow.”“Right,” Connor says. He hums to himself, a tune that Kevin doesn’t recognise. “Screw the past, too.”“Aye aye, Captain,” says Kevin. “Screw the past.”Or; Arnold is the greatest best friend in the world, Connor is a jerk, and Kevin Price is hot and bothered.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Last October, devilberry took me to see the Book of Mormon on the West End, and I've been writing this ever since. I haven't written fic in like five years, and I haven't written anything at all since I finished my creative writing degree a year and a half ago. I tried to write like, 5k to try to get back into it and alas 5k turned to 20k which somehow turned to 45k. Surprise? 
> 
> For devilberry, as always, for editing this even though she doesn't care about my mormons, for being the entire reason I started writing in the first place 7 years ago, and for being the adorable, funny Arnold to my narcissistic and probably mentally ill Kevin.
> 
> Post-publication note: this fic has been separated into three chapters for ease of reading, but it scans mostly as a very long one-shot. I would recommend blocking out some time to read it in one or two parts, but it's totally up to you!

“Jesus Christ,” says Arnold. Kevin looks down at him expectantly. Arnold just shrugs back. “It’s hot,” he says, by way of explanation. Kevin says nothing. It is hot.

The top three buttons of his shirt are undone. He’s not wearing his undergarments. This might be the furthest he’s come to undressed in front of other people in over a decade and he feels uncomfortable. It’s _indecent._ He’s sweating like, in Arnold’s words, a pig in heat. Kevin doesn’t ever quite follow what Arnold says, but he’s found that Arnold is almost always right.

It’s funny, how difficult not following rules is. He was a bit foolhardy, in retrospect, to think that you can undo everything you’ve learned over the past two decades in two months.

Arnold was breaking rules without even realising long before he became a Prophet. It’s not particularly difficult for him to do whatever he feels like doing. Kevin finds himself intensely, shamefully envious of him. Envy isn’t an alien emotion to Kevin, but the rush of affection is. Kevin thinks, I’m a little bit in love with you, Elder Cunningham, and is so overcome with affection that he ruffles his hair. Arnold thinks nothing of it. He is so grateful to have found Arnold, and is taken aback by how unlike himself he sounds. Kevin has never really felt grateful for anything.

Kevin goes back to digging, ignoring that his companion is leaning heavily on his shovel and making a noise that sounds suspiciously like a snore. _Number seventy-three, do not retire after your companion._ There’s something about the task that’s making him feel melancholy. The dirt keeps falling right back into the little trench and his hair is greasy and falling in his eyes. It’s never done that before. He needs a haircut. He makes a mental note to ask Nabulungi if she knows anyone who knows how to cut hair, and he feels his back stiffen at the thought of anybody cutting his hair other than his second cousin twice removed, or something, who has cut his hair in the exact same way since he was six years old. The same way it details in the mission regulations. Never mind a stranger who doesn’t speak the same language. _Number seven, cut your hair regularly._ He thinks about his second cousin, Aunt Helen, then his brother, and then carefully, slowly, doesn’t think about his parents.

What was it that Elder McKinley used to say? Kevin looks up over to the building site, where he knows that Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas are planning on building the Church, and finds Elder McKinley looking back at him as if he heard Kevin’s thoughts. Kevin smiles at him across the way. He thinks Elder McKinley might smile back, but he turns his head quickly to say something to Elder Thomas.

Oh, right. Turn it off.

Easy for him to say, Kevin thinks bitterly. Turning it back _on_ is his problem. He’s not even sure if he has another setting. He’s just – Kevin Price. And Kevin Price is a good boy.

***

When Kevin Price is nine years old, he falls out of a tree. This is the most rebellious thing he will do for ten years. His knees bleed through his trousers and his wrist swells to twice its bony size where he crushed it with the weight of his body on wet ground. He cries, and he doesn’t understand this sensation, because Kevin Price has never really felt pain before. Kevin is a good boy. Kevin always does what he’s told.

Jack says, “Kevin, are you alright?” and Kevin says yes, and tries to stand up. His raw palms sting as he pushes them on the ground. He yells as his wrist burns and he’s never heard the sound that comes out of his mouth before. “You might have broken something,” says Jack. “I’ll go and get Dad.”

Kevin sits on his own in the mud. It feels like he’s going to be there forever. He knows that God is always with him but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like he’s all alone. This isn’t true, because he knows exactly what his _forever_ life is going to be. His mom and dad tell him all the time. He knows that in his _forever_ life, Kevin Price will not be alone. As long as he’s a good boy.

His trousers are damp with blood and dirt and he stares at the red patches on his knees. The skin is peeling on the heel of his hand and Kevin touches it with his forefinger. It hurts. Even though he’s a whole nine years old, Kevin feels small. The woods make noises. It’s too warm.

After an eternity, Jack and his Dad find him. Kevin holds his pudgy little hands into the air, and his father frowns down at him, head blocking the sun. Kevin stops crying. He looks at Jack, because Jack is nice to him, maybe Jack will help him up and stroke his hair and kiss his wrist better. Kevin is friends with a girl at school called Suzy who has soft orange hair, who insists that you have to kiss where it hurts before it gets better, because her mommy told her so. Kevin’s mom has never kissed Kevin better because Kevin doesn’t ride bikes or trip on curbs. Kevin Price doesn’t climb trees, but he did it anyway. Jack looks away.

“That was very naughty of you, Kevin. How many times have we told you not to climb trees?”

Kevin can’t remember his parents ever telling him not to climb a tree. He supposes maybe he forgot, because Mormons can’t lie. Sometimes – sometimes it feels like there are a lot of rules that Kevin is already supposed to know, as if he should know all the secrets of the universe by instinct. He doesn’t. Kevin feels hot and stupid. He lowers his arms.

“Sorry, Father,” Kevin says. His dad tuts at him and cocks his head.

“You should apologise to Heavenly Father, not me. Remember to confess in your prayers tonight. You’re nine years old now. You have to work for Heavenly Father’s protection. Now get up.”

Kevin tries, and cries out in pain again. His wrist hurts.

“Dad,” says Kevin, holding his limp wrist up with his other hand. “Look. It hurts.”

“That’s Heavenly Father’s way of punishing you for breaking the rules, Kevin.” His dad looks at him sadly. “You’re usually such a good boy.”

“I am!” cries Kevin. “I just. It looked like fun. I saw some boys at school do it.”

His dad bends down on his knees and puts his hand on Kevin’s shoulder.

“Heavenly Father puts temptations on Earth to test us. As long as you follow the rules, He won’t punish you. It’s quite simple, Kevin.”

Kevin nods. “I won’t break the rules again,” and at the look on his Dad’s face, he adds, “I promise.”

“You need to get home, now. You are filthy. Just look at your hair. Good Mormon boys like you don’t fall out of trees and get covered in mud. Now your mom has to clean up after you.”

He helps him up and Kevin walks unsteadily back to the house. He’s not crying anymore, but he’s feeling a new sensation stirring in his stomach. His face burns.

***

Kevin gets a call from his parents. It’s inevitable. He’s been waiting for it for weeks and had somewhat assumed that they would never talk to him again.

You’re a good Mormon boy, they’d said. Good Mormon boys follow the rules. Kevin didn’t say much of anything over the phone, because there wasn’t anything he could say to his father to make the situation any better, and he’s always been so difficult to talk to, so his father put his mother on. She had obviously been crying.

“You were such a handsome boy,” and Kevin doesn’t miss the past tense. “Always did as you were told. And now you’re living in sin and we know it’s because of that Cunningham boy. We’ve spoken to his parents for you.”

“And what did they say?” Kevin feels tired and heavy. He pinches the bridge of his nose until it hurts.

“They told us to get out of their house. We thought maybe he had just been confused, you know we hear these stories about him at Church, and we hoped that you would be a good influence on him, being the – the way you are, but now we know he wasn’t raised properly. Some people are just lost causes.”

Kevin bristles.

“Arnold is my best friend.”

Kevin can feel his mother sighing. “We never thought you could be so easily influenced. You were blessed, Kevin, and now you are betraying God’s wishes. The Mission President told us about the – colourful display of those Ugandan people.”

“They’ve been baptised. They are as much a part of the church as you and I are.”

“Well,” the tone is familiar and snippy, “I’m not sure how much longer you will be a part of the church, with the way you and your – your _best friend_ – have betrayed it.”

Kevin doesn’t know what to say, so he says, “I love coffee.”

There’s silence, and Kevin isn’t used to people not wanting to hear what he has to say, so he says, “I love coffee, and I love sleeping in until I want, and I love not wearing my undergarments or a tie because gosh, it’s hot in Africa, mother. I love my mission companion and I like spending time apart from him. I love – I love cursing, and I love dancing and I still love God.”

“It’s because of – it’s because of those people there isn’t it? The Cunningham boy and the Ugandans and we even heard that there is – that your leader prefers the company of _men.”_

“I don’t care,” says Kevin. “I couldn’t care less.”

“You can’t just _make a new Church._ You’ve always been pompous, but you aren’t God.”

“Yes, well. Neither are you.”

“Kevin,” his mother says, “you have turned out to be such a disappointment,” and Kevin hangs up the phone.

He stays in the hallway until it gets dark and he starts to hear movement from outside the hut. He expects the phone to ring again. It doesn’t.

It’s Kevin’s turn to cook dinner, so he makes his way to the kitchen and prays to Heavenly Father that nobody is there to see the look on his face. He washes the vegetables and yesterday’s dishes in the same water. He wonders if anyone will choose to say grace today, and hopes they don’t. He isn’t feeling particularly grateful for God’s gifts.

Elder McKinley comes through the door with the sound of the bell and smiles his trademark smile, with all of his teeth, when he sees Kevin.

“Elder Price,” he says, voice full of song. “We missed you in class today.”

“Sorry,” says Kevin, and he really means it. The kids are a handful on the best of days. “My parents called.”

“Ah,” says Elder McKinley. “How are they?”

“Oh, they’re fine,” says Kevin, and begins to cut the vegetables. “Never been better.”

“That’s good,” says Elder McKinley, airily. “Would you like any help with dinner?”

“No, thank you. You should sit. I imagine you’ve had a long day.”

“Mm,” he says, and sits down on the dining chair with flourish. “I love the kids, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not particularly good with them.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Kevin says, cutting in quarters. “You just need to loosen up a little.”

“What, you want me to – drink coffee and, and, curse and leave the mission hut after curfew?”

“Maybe,” Kevin shrugs. “You are very uptight,” he says with the confidence of somebody whose opinions are usually taken as law.

“You’re one to talk,” Elder McKinley says with a bite.

“I’m working on it,” and he can hear Elder McKinley snort from across the room.

“The Mormon poster-boy, Kevin Price,” he says quietly. “We heard so much about you. We knew you’d stir our mission up a bit, but you really are quite exceptional.”

Kevin cuts his hand and yells _fuck!_ Loud enough to make the villagers blush twenty minutes away.

Elder McKinley is over in a flash, standing _too close_ and hovering his hand over Kevin’s fist.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“There’s blood on the vegetables,” says Kevin, and immediately bursts into tears.

It’s one of the most embarrassing moments in Kevin’s living memory. He is not a pretty crier. There’s a lot of snot and his face is screwed up and he gasps as he tries to speak. Elder McKinley grabs his wrist and pries his fingers apart. He tuts. He goes to the cupboard and pulls out the first aid kit, tears open the antibacterial wipe packet with his teeth and starts to clean the blood off his hand without a word.

“I am not a _boy_ ,” says Kevin.

“I know.”

Elder McKinley’s voice is soothing, in rhythm with the soft, sweeping motions of his hand.

“And I am not a good Mormon.”

“Yeah,” says Elder McKinley. “I know that too.”

Kevin, to his mortifying surprise, cries even harder. Elder McKinley leans in, conspiratorially, and whispers ever so quietly, “Fuck them.”

He is so close to Kevin’s ear that his breath sends shivers throughout Kevin’s body. The sensation is new and exciting.

“You cursed,” Kevin exhales shakily, then hiccups. “Now you need to sneak out with me after curfew to go get coffee.”

“I’m not even wearing my undergarments right now,” says Elder McKinley indifferently. Kevin can feel himself burn bright red. He hiccups again. Elder McKinley’s hand is cold on Kevin’s hot skin. His fingers are still clutched around Kevin’s wrist.

“What about dinner,” says Kevin. “There’s still blood everywhere.”

Elder McKinley shrugs. “We’ll just throw the vegetables out and say they were spoiled. It won’t be the first time it’s happened.”

He lets go of Kevin. He can suddenly breathe in a way he didn’t know he wasn’t doing before.

“Thank you,” says Kevin, inspecting his bandaged hand, and he really means it.

“Move over,” says Elder McKinley, and bumps his hip into his. “I don’t trust you with the knives anymore, clumsy.”

Kevin watches him prepare dinner dumbly. He’s feeling all sorts of feelings, but he squashes them down by staring at Elder McKinley’s hands working. He feels Elder McKinley’s eyes on him after a while and realises that he’s being weird. He turns his head, and decides to set the table.

Kevin is not a good Mormon. This much he’s known for a while. But he’s not sure what he is instead.

He tries to remember the last time he indulged in a hobby that wasn’t scripture, or proselytising, or something Church-approved. He can’t. He thinks of his mother sat on her chair knitting scarves for the five of them. He tries to force his mind to go blank. He can’t do that anymore, either. And Kevin hates not being able to do something. He tries to recite verses in his head but his hands start shaking again and so he stands, glaring at plates, until there’s a hand on his forearm.

“Hey,” says Elder McKinley. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” says Kevin, but he doesn’t believe him. Belief is the core of Kevin Price, and he doesn’t know who he is anymore. When he looks in the mirror and sees the curl of hair on his forehead and his skin that is darker and darker by the day, he doesn’t recognise himself. He doesn’t even wear a tie anymore.

“You are,” says Elder McKinley, gripping his arm a little harder. “And you are important,” and for once in his life this doesn’t make Kevin feel any better.

“So are you,” says Kevin, and he doesn’t mean to say it but his head is foggy and he’s finding it hard to connect his brain to his mouth. Elder McKinley’s mouth falls slightly open.

“Thank you, Elder,” he says and his hand slips away to finish serving food. The other Elders arrive and fill the room with idle chatter and that is the end of that.

***

Kevin finds himself pleasantly numb to most things these days. Sunburn is a given. He gets used to hunger. He squints less in the sunlight. When there’s news of another villager getting sick, he convinces himself they’ll get better. He even removed the giant spider from the bathroom that made Elder Neeley cry with an air of cool indifference.

There’s still some things, though, that he can’t turn off. Like thinking about his family. He is constantly trying to convert the time difference, unwillingly imagining what they’re doing right now. Jack returning from his mission. The outfit his sister might have chosen to impress everyone on her first day of high school. The new sermons his father has given. That sort of thing.

Or the way that the other Elders don’t seem to like him very much. He understands why – he’s abrasive and needy, his personality is too big, and their first impression of him was the worst mistake he’s ever made in his life. He also thinks (not that he would ever admit it), that they might be a little jealous of him. Kevin is tall and dark and handsome, he knows this. He’s charismatic in a way that he knows some of the others will never be. They must think he was popular in high school while they were getting bullied or whatever, that he was prom king and maybe played sports. None of it is true, but he understands that’s the image he puts across. He faked it until he made it and now even that’s come crashing down around him and he doesn’t know who or what he is, anymore. But he knows that to a lot of people he’s always going to be Kevin Price, Mormon poster boy, the Church’s darling and always the best looking person in the room. Even when he’s not really a Mormon anymore, the Church is one hair away from kicking him out entirely, and the bags under his eyes and the lines around his mouth make him look too old.

He tries to get them to like him, tries to be as helpful as possible, but this ends up annoying everyone even more. He does things like rush forward to grab plates off Elder Thomas and drop them on the floor, or be so eager to help someone drag a cart full of the Book of Arnold to the village he walks straight into a tree. And then he gets more flustered and even more acutely aware of how people stiffen when he walks into a room, and then the more he tries to please everybody. He tripped over his own feet helping Elder McKinley carry a sack of potatoes and they spilled all over the floor. Elder McKinley had shrugged and announced to the room, “he tries too hard.”

Kevin had been horrified, which made Elder McKinley laugh, and that made Elder Church and Elder Davis laugh, and it wasn’t until Arnold bounded in, as energetic as usual and his voice hysterical over nothing, that Kevin felt like he could breathe again.

And that brings him to the Problem of Elder McKinley.

Kevin was being annoying and needy and getting under everyone’s feet, but nobody actually talked about it, and that was just fine with Kevin. The only person who doesn’t seem to care about this particular elephant in the room is Elder McKinley. Kevin finds this quite unfair, because Elder McKinley has his own, huge and sparkly elephant and Kevin never says anything about _that_.

Elder McKinley doesn’t tense up around him. Elder McKinley gets bugs out of his hair for him and plays cards with him when Kevin looks particularly morose. Elder McKinley does things like call him out in a room full of people and put his arm around him in a companionable way while he teases him about how he looks less than perfect that day or he said something particularly conceited.

He wonders if it all has something to do with Kevin’s little melt-down in the kitchen. He thinks it probably is. If Elder Church had found him, would it be Elder Church who didn’t act afraid of him? Would Elder Church be friendly with him the way Elder McKinley is? Maybe it’s because he opened up, maybe he has to allow himself to be vulnerable in front of other people instead of cooping himself up inside a small room, controlling his breathing until he feels like he can put on his best missionary smile again. Maybe it’s just Elder McKinley.

He stops his work for the day to hide under the shade of a tree. He takes a long gulp of water. “Hello,” says Elder McKinley, who appears next to him, apparently with the same plan of hiding in the shade. The tip of his nose is bright red. Kevin has to fight the ridiculous, childish urge to bop it with his finger. Kevin hands over the water bottle wordlessly. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

Kevin snorts. “I’d like to think we’re a bit further in our relationship than making small talk about the weather.”

Elder McKinley goes very still, and Kevin is suddenly filled with a squirmy sensation, and the familiar flushed feeling he’s always gotten when he thinks he might be wrong about something. His bandaged hand itches.

“Yes,” says Elder McKinley. “I suppose we are.”

Kevin smiles without any intention to do so, and Elder McKinley smiles back. He’s got kind of crooked teeth that Kevin has never noticed before.

He passes the water bottle to back to Kevin. Kevin doesn’t know what to say, so he talks about Arnold. Arnold, and the concept of him, is a great ice breaker.

“So, Arnold has definitely been breaking curfew rules. Last night he didn’t get back until sunrise, when he woke me up by being the most ungraceful person I have ever had the misfortune to meet in my life.”

Elder McKinley snorts. “So we’re substituting weather talk for gossip?”

“Absolutely,” says Kevin, and wiggles his eyebrows a bit. “He even left his undergarments. A bit of leverage over Arnold is certainly never a bad thing. Maybe bring him down a peg or two.”

Elder McKinley laughs, truly laughs, in a way that Kevin has never heard him do before.

“And you don’t need bringing down a peg or two?”

“Well, that seems to have become everybody’s new personal mission,” says Kevin, flippantly. “No need for you to make a habit of it, too. Did you know that Elder Thomas has banned me from any and all board games?”

“That’s because – and I know this for a fact, Elder Price, do not pull that face at me – that you flipped the board when you went bankrupt in Monopoly and stormed off for a full half hour.”

Kevin glares at him. Don’t remind me, he thinks, but doesn’t want Elder McKinley know he’s embarrassed about it, because Elder McKinley already knows too much.

“All ego aside,” - Elder McKinley gasps, clutches his chest, and rolls his eyes – “Arnold is the one who needs to be brought down to Earth. He saved the day, created a new religion, became a prophet, _and_ got the girl. That has to go to your head a little bit.”

“Yes,” says Elder McKinley, “but you’re _Kevin Price._ ”

Kevin looks at him. “Thank you?”

Elder McKinley smiles that smile again, with the teeth, and Kevin is torn between feeling like he’s being made fun of and preening.

Then Elder McKinley does something that is both frightening and exhilarating, as everything in Uganda has turned out to be. He leans forward, suddenly, and puts his hand on Kevin’s face. Kevin stays very still, like he’s afraid of startling an animal, and is surprised by how cold his hand feels against his very warm cheeks. He is probably bright red and flustered, and he’s finding it very hard to look into his eyes like a normal person, and then Elder McKinley digs his fingers into a spot above Kevin’s eyebrow and rubs really, really hard.

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” Elder McKinley grins, not looking very sorry at all, “but you had dirt on your face, and it was really quite annoying.”

It’s all very confusing for Kevin, trying to untangle of the pieces of his brain and organise them and then tangle them all up again in a way that works for him. Kevin, he has been told, is either the greatest person to ever exist (Arnold) and therefore his pride is not unfounded, or it is very clear that he is the least popular missionary there (everybody except for Arnold), which frustrates and upsets Kevin in a way that he hasn’t felt since he was in middle school. He doesn’t know where Elder McKinley fits in. Elder McKinley seems to admire him and hate him several times a day. Sometimes, he even acts like they might be friends.

Instead of the questions he should be asking, which involves a lot of ‘why’ and ‘personal space issues’, he wonders compulsively if Elder McKinley touches other people the way he touches him. He tries to side eye him from afar, and monitor his behaviour around others, acutely aware of how strange it is to be acting this way. But once, Kevin found Elder McKinley staring back at him with an alarmingly dark expression, and a vaguely smug smile, and then Kevin spends a lot of time not looking at Elder McKinley at all.

***

It’s Arnold who makes him talk about it, because Arnold is Arnold and he loves to talk.

“My parents wrote me a letter,” he smiles at Kevin when he enters the room. Kevin is freshly bathed but he already feels sweaty again. It’s been horribly humid recently. He blinks droplets from his eyes.

“That’s nice,” he says, and sits down on the end of Arnold’s bed, peering over his shoulder. “Did you tell them about Nabulungi?”

“I did!” says Arnold, bouncing Kevin on the bed with enthusiasm. “They didn’t believe me at first. I think they’re just happy that I’ve finally – you know. That a girl likes me.”

“Any girl would like you, it’s just that Nabulungi is the first girl who you’ve actually let get a word in edgeways.”

Arnold kicks him and almost knocks Kevin off the bed, giggling when Kevin’s arms flail.

“I think there was a compliment in there,” says Arnold. “Besides, when was the last time a girl liked _you_.”

Kevin clutches his heart. “You wound me, Elder Cunningham.”

“Anyway,” Arnold says. “They said that your parents paid them a visit.”

“Oh,” says Kevin, deflating.

“Yeah,” says Arnold.

“They – they might’ve said something.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kevin sighs. He doesn’t really know how to answer that question without making himself look like a bad friend, or without opening up to Arnold and letting him see a little into the hot, dark, sticky hole inside him.

“They said some things,” says Kevin, “that I don’t want to talk about.”

“Yeah,” Arnold brandishes the letter, “I gathered that.”

Kevin is silent. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, but if he has to, he’s glad it’s with Arnold. The memory of Elder McKinley’s fingers on his wrist is still fresh. When it’s quiet, if he closes his eyes and tries really hard, he can almost feel the impression on his skin.

“Apparently I’m a terrible influence,” Arnold sighs. “Mom was very nice about it. But that’s what your parents told them.”

“You are a terrible influence,” says Kevin, and doesn’t like the look on Arnold’s face. “That’s not a bad thing. I’m glad you are. You already knew that.”

Kevin wonders, not for the first time, whether the – The Incident, and Arnold, and his book, was such a good idea after all.

“They think we’re under the influence of Satan,” says Arnold. He looks proud. “My Mom told them where to go stick it.”

Kevin laughs. “Yeah, they told me that too.”

“They’re worried about you,” and Kevin is oddly touched. “And so am I.”

“There’s no need to be. I’m fine.”

“Someone needs to be,” Arnold shrugs, and touches the bandage on Kevin’s hand.

“I’m _fine,”_ says Kevin.

“They don’t sound like very nice people.” Kevin stares at him. “In fact, they sound like they’re kind of horrible.”

This is the first time anybody has ever said a bad word about his parents. He feels a little bit like throwing up. They are perfect Mormons, a perfect family. They are admired, envied, imitated. Their children are well-groomed and just as good at being Mormons. Jack is district leader in Canada. They run bake sales and teach at Sunday School. His father reads verses at sermons.

“Yes,” says Kevin, like pulling teeth, “Yes, they are kind of horrible.”

“I’m sorry,” says Arnold. “That sucks.”

“It does,” and Kevin starts to laugh until he can’t stop. “It really, really does.”

He feels like he’s about to start crying again. It’s ridiculous to feel so embarrassed in front of Arnold, because Arnold screamed louder than everyone and refused to get off the rickety chair he was standing on when that scorpion managed to get in the hut but still cried until he tired himself out in Kevin’s arms when Elder Michaels killed it. Arnold cries over anything. Arnold is completely, unabashedly unashamed of himself. Kevin doesn’t understand it. Kevin is kind of afraid of it.

“You never have to talk to them again, if you don’t want to.”

“I miss them,” says Kevin. “And that’s ridiculous, right? I mean – they are, they’re truly _horrible,_ all the time, but I miss them so much.”

“That’s okay,” Arnold says. “They’re still your parents. Of course you miss them. They were your whole life.”

Now Kevin’s started talking, now he’s saying what he’s barely allowed himself to think, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop. He feels wrong. He feels like his skin is too small for his body.

“They’ve never – they say they love me, but I don’t think they mean it. They love the attention I get. They love being praised for my achievements. But they don’t – they don’t love me. They never read me a bedtime story, or kissed my forehead, or asked how I was feeling. And I miss them.”

“It’s okay,” Arnold places his hand on Kevin’s knee. “It’ll pass, with time.”

“I don’t know what to do,” says Kevin. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“You are here to make a paradise planet,” says Arnold. “Remember?”

“It’s just – it’s a lot of responsibility. I’m not – I’m not a good Mormon. I’m not, I’m not a good person.”

“They aren’t the same thing,” says Arnold, clearly choosing his words carefully. “You know that.”

“I can’t do it. Arnold, I can’t – I can’t do this -” and then he can’t breathe, and there’s a pain in his chest that wasn’t there before, and he feels so sick, and, and. His vision blurs. “I can’t be here anymore, I need to go home, but I don’t have a home to go to. I shouldn’t have come here. This whole mess is my fault, I did this, I ruined everyone’s chances of going to Heaven, oh God, Arnold –“

Arnold looks stricken. Kevin feels confused and disoriented. He clutches Arnold’s arm and he can’t stop concentrating on this _feeling,_ the truth that he knows, that the hole inside him is getting bigger and bigger and it won’t stop until it swallows him whole.

“Uhm, oh Gosh, Kevin, we need to calm you down. I don’t know what to do.”

“Me either,” croaks Kevin in between gasps. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” He repeats it, over and over again, until Arnold shoves his head between his legs without warning.

“Yes you can, you can breathe. You’ve done it a million times. It’s easy. Count with me,” and Arnold starts to count, one two three, one two three four. He rubs his hand on Kevin’s back and Kevin starts to see the details of the hardwood floor and his lungs fill with air.

“Good, that’s good,” Arnold soothes.

Kevin doesn’t understand what just happened, only he understands entirely, and he aches all over.

When Kevin starts to breathe normally he’s so tired that he falls asleep in Arnold’s bed holding his hand. He wakes up without dreaming to the sound of Arnold snoring and his heart hurts with gratitude and a swirl of emotions that he doesn’t recognise but feel a lot like shame.

***

Kevin’s parents are so angry that he climbed the tree that they said that he would have to wait for his wrist to heal by itself, because it was God’s way of teaching him a lesson. It doesn’t seem to be healing, and he is horrified that God hadn’t forgiven him yet. He wears his jumper with the end of the sleeve balled up in his fist so nobody can see his wrist. He pretends he’s left handed and his handwriting is even more illegible than it was before. Nobody can know that he sinned. He won’t lie, because he’s a good Mormon boy, and Mormons don’t lie. He just doesn’t want anyone to know that he did something wrong, so he figures if he hides it, then nobody will ask him about it, and he won’t have to lie.

He panics when it’s time for gym class. They usually have it indoors, where he can wear his sweater, but it’s such a lovely day outside that Mrs Montgomery decides they should play outdoors. It’s too hot to wear his sweater outside. Kevin finds quite suddenly that he’s forgotten how to breathe.

He dawdles so he’s at the back of the other children swarming around the doorway, and then turns to an inquisitive Mrs Montgomery. Kevin is not the kind of boy who is last for anything.

Kevin explains to her what happened, in his polite and matter of fact way.

“So I can’t play baseball today. Can I maybe stay here and do my homework instead?”

“Kevin,” says Mrs Montgomery, “when did this happen?”

“On Saturday,” Kevin explains. Today is Thursday.

“Can I see it?”

Kevin freezes. He doesn’t know why he didn’t expect the question.

“Um,” he says, but Mrs Montgomery is already lifting up his sleeve. He sees her lips tighten and her nostrils flare. See, he thinks sadly. Now she knows you gave in to temptation and Heavenly Father is mad at you.

“Kevin -”

“I didn’t mean to!” Kevin says. “I forgot that I wasn’t allowed in the tree and it looked like loads of fun, I saw how tall it was and I thought, I bet I can get up really really high and see really really far, but then I fell. I couldn’t go as far as I thought.” Mrs Montgomery lets his arm go. Kevin looks at his shoes. He doesn’t want to get yelled at again. “I’ve never climbed a tree before.”

“That’s okay, Kevin. I know it wasn’t your fault.” Kevin really likes his teacher. She speaks softly and is always nice and gives you hard candies at the end of the week if you get enough stickers on the star chart. And Kevin always gets enough stickers on his star chart. This is why he feels really bad telling her that she’s wrong. Kevin hates being told that he’s wrong. It’s one of the worst feelings in the whole entire world.

“It was my fault,” says Kevin, “because I broke the rules.” He leans in towards Mrs Montgomery’s kind face, and whispers, “I figured it out. I fell out of the tree because I had false pride. That’s why I’m in so much trouble.”

Mrs Montgomery opens her mouth, then closes it again. Kevin feels cold all over.

“Has anybody looked at your wrist, Kevin? A doctor?”

“No,” says Kevin. And because he is a good Mormon boy, and good Mormons never lie, he explains, “God will heal it when I’ve been forgiven.”

Her kind face doesn’t look kind at all. Kevin knows that look. She’s angry because her mouth is pressed so tightly that it looks like she doesn’t have any lips, and she is unusually quiet. He braces himself.

“We are going to see the Principal. Come along, Kevin.”

Kevin walks shamefully behind her, staring at his feet the whole time. He has never been to see the Principal before. Only naughty boys and girls get taken to the see the Principal when they won’t be quiet when they’re told or when they pull on somebody’s hair, or chew gum. He is surprised when his teacher takes his little hand into her big one.

“Hello,” she announces when the Principal opens the door. He frowns down at Kevin, too. “Kevin here has hurt his wrist falling out of a tree at home and needs to be taken to the hospital.”

The Principal bends down, and asks to see his wrist. The lights in the office are bright and the room is very small. Mrs Montgomery clicks the door behind her, and stands by the handle. Kevin is suddenly very frightened. He is not going to cry again, although his eyes sting from the force of keeping them in. He doesn’t want to get in any more trouble than he already is.

“No,” says Kevin. He didn’t know he was going to say that until he said it. He feels very light headed and he’s forgotten that he needs to breathe. The Principal reaches out to his sleeve anyway. Kevin snatches it away. “No. I think – I think I’m being punished enough, and I shouldn’t get in any more trouble!”

The Principal and Mrs Montgomery look at each other over Kevin’s head. He’s not _stupid_. He knows that grown ups can have conversations with their eyes.

“You aren’t in trouble, Kevin,” the Principal says. “We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

Kevin stays quiet, and holds his wrist as far behind his back as possible.

“Please, Kevin, sweetie, we just want to help. You’re in pain.”

“I will be okay when Heavenly Father has forgiven me,” Kevin says.

The Principal says, “Okay, Kevin,” and then turns to Mrs Montgomery. “Shall I call his parents?” and Kevin shakes his head so hard his brain rattles.

“No!” says Kevin, before he realised that the Principal wasn’t talking to him. Speaking out of turn. He bristles with that sick, hot sensation again.

“I think it’s probably best if we don’t call them just yet.”

They call for the school nurse, instead, who takes one look at his wrist, prods it, and nods at Kevin’s teachers.

Mrs Montgomery and the nurse take him to the hospital, in the end. He sits in the back of the car and pretends he can’t hear his teachers whispering. Kevin doesn’t want to go with them, but he does, because he has been taught to always respect his superiors. It’s white and loud and he hates it. There are lots of strangers who poke at him and pull at his arm and he even has to sit in a scary room on his own while everybody watches him from a screen. They say there’s a machine that is taking his picture. Kevin figures it’s probably part of the punishment.

They say that’s he’s _broken_ it, and they put this hard glove thingy on it which they call a cast. It’s purple. It’s huge and his jumper won’t even fit over it.

Kevin’s parents are furious when he comes home. Because he is a good Mormon boy, he never lies, and so he tells them what happened and his dad’s face goes bright red, and he says a lot of words that Kevin doesn’t understand and this frightens him. They send him to his room for the rest of the night, and he reads his scripture with such ferocity that he doesn’t remember any of it when he’s finished.

The next day, when he sullenly walks into class with his huge purple arm, he is the most popular person in the room. Some of them get black felt tip markers and draw on it. Suzy, who is the nicest girl he’s ever met, kisses it, because that’s what makes it better when you get hurt. Kevin knows that only Heavenly Father can stop it from hurting when he feels that it is right to do so, but it makes Kevin feel warm and happy anyway.

Four different people eat with him at lunchtime. At the end of the week, Kevin beats his personal record of eleven stars on the sheet with _seventeen_ stars.

***

It gets a little better, and then a little better after that, too. Sometimes it’s worse. Mostly, it’s just a whole different world.

The weird sticky hole inside him is still there, but Kevin finds that if he ignores it, it might just go away. He wonders how long it’s been there, but decides not to open that can of worms.

He mostly wants to be left alone. He finds himself displeased in the company of others, feels prickly and almost hateful, watching other people be normal and not screwed up in the head. They are just the way they are, and they’re fine with that. It’s infuriating. Kevin wishes, more than anything, that he could wake up tomorrow as a different person, with a different life, and find himself happy.

Once they settled, and tested their strengths and weaknesses, Elder McKinley drew up a new rota, with respective roles given to each Elder. Arnold, of course, is the exception this. Arnold can do whatever he wants, as long as he continues making the Book. Elder Church, being the biggest of them all, does most of the manual labour. Elder Thomas, who is more personable than most, becomes a makeshift counsellor and agony aunt. Elder McKinley is in charge of building the church, with Elder Michaels and Elder Neeley as his subordinates in making the plans and fetching supplies. Elder Davis will be mostly helping out Gotswana at the doctor’s office. And as for Kevin, he has him working with the children, and by extension, their parents, too. Daily teaching of maths and spoken English, how to read, and on Sundays, they’ll learn about God.

“You’re a great teacher,” says Elder McKinley, with a shrug, when challenged on his choice.

“I’m not,” says Kevin. “I’m no good with people, anymore. You must know that I’m better suited to something else.”

“Well, you are the _best_ at it, out of everyone,” and Kevin hates the sparkle in his eye so much he feels his fists balling.

“Stop it,” says Kevin. Elder McKinley looks up at him from his office desk and puts down his pen. “Don’t do that. I’m not a child.”

“Okay,” says Elder McKinley. “But if it means anything, you really are the best teacher here. And somebody needs to watch out for those kids.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, no. I’m not a good role model. There’s nothing I can teach them.”

Elder McKinley is staring at him, now, and Kevin wishes he had the willpower to look away from his gaze and leave.

“That’s not true,” he says. “You must know that’s not true.”

“It is true,” says Kevin, sullenly. “I’m no good for anyone. Swap me with Elder Church, or something. I’m strong, too, and I’ll do just as good a job as him, without – acting like, you know, around a bunch of kids who don’t know any better. I’m a liability, and you know that. Don’t let me ruin a bunch of children’s lives.”

Elder McKinley won’t stop staring at him, fingers laced under his chin.

“What happened to you?”

“Uganda,” says Kevin mildly, feeling anything other than mild. He is hot and tired.

“You know, for someone who insists he’s not a child, you spend a lot of time acting like one.”

“For someone who isn’t attracted to men, you spend a lot of time acting like you are.”

Kevin knows he’s made a mistake even as the words are tumbling out. He doesn’t understand why he has to be so hot headed. Elder McKinley raises his eyebrows.

“A low blow, Elder.” He picks up his stack of papers and starts shuffling them. “If I were you, I’d leave now.”

“No,” says Kevin, and remembers how soothing the Elder’s hands felt. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, probably not,” Elder McKinley agrees. Those soothing hands are shaking slightly. “I’d really like you to leave.”

“No,” says Kevin again. He doesn’t flinch when Elder McKinley stands to meet his gaze at eye level.

“I thought, Elder Price, that you always do as you’re told.”

Kevin bares his teeth slightly. If Elder McKinley is looking for a fight, he’s not in the mood to pretend he’s not, too.

“What is your problem?”

“You,” says Elder McKinley. “You are my problem, Kevin Price.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“For all our expectations of you, all you have managed to be from start to finish is a pain in my ass.”

“What kind of District Leader are you, letting your personal problems get in the way of our mission?”

“Our mission?” Elder McKinley laughs, short and high-pitched. “What mission? You ruined that, rather spectacularly, of course, because you’re Kevin Price, and the Earth spins on its axis for you.”

Kevin is momentarily stunned for words. He’s never gotten into a fight like this before. He feels a mad surge of power, the ability to be intentionally cruel, and wonders if Elder McKinley feels it, too.

He takes a step closer, and puts his finger on Elder McKinley’s chest. His eyes are very blue.

“We all make mistakes. And people are allowed to change, Elder. You of all people should know about that.”

“Stop talking,” says Elder McKinley. He doesn’t back down from Kevin’s gaze. If anything, he makes himself taller. “Not everyone cares about what you have to say.”

“That’s the point!” Kevin shouts, and then lowers his voice. “Nobody gives a shit about Kevin Price. I don’t know anything. I only know the teachings of Heavenly Father and how to disappoint people. Those kids are dying, Elder. And if they’re not, their family is. What am I supposed to do about it? I can’t even look after myself.”

“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” says Elder McKinley. “You have one little meltdown and you think the world stops. Be the leader, like you were supposed to be. Change things. Swoop in at the last minute and save the day, whatever it is you need to do, be the hero, anything. Sort yourself out.”

“Get lost,” he says, screwing his face up. “You judged me before you even met me. Well, I heard about you before I met you, too. But I don’t go around getting annoyed at you for not acting like I expected.”

“Oh, I imagine you heard all sorts of sordid things about me, Elder. All I heard about for months was how fantastic you are, how once you arrived you would change everything. And you did. But now you’re completely insufferable, and you don’t know the first thing about me. So stop talking back to me and do as you’re told.”

“I know that your name is Connor McKinley, you are twenty years old, from Nevada. You have two younger sisters called Evelyn and Harriet, your grandparents died before you were born. You took tap dancing lessons until you were thirteen. You know first aid. You prayed for your mission to be somewhere in Europe. You’re afraid of moths and clowns creep you out. You alphabetise everything.” Elder McKinley doesn’t say anything. Kevin smiles. “And what do you know about me? Other than me being the _exceptional_ Kevin Price?”

“That’s not fair,” says Elder McKinley. “You don’t talk about yourself.”

“You’ve never asked.”

Kevin finds himself breathing heavily.  Elder McKinley’s chest is heaving, too. He can feel it under his fingers. Kevin pushes him away and takes a step back.

“Okay,” Elder McKinley says.

“Okay?” says Kevin.

“Okay, Kevin. Maybe you’re right.”

They stand there like that, too close, with too much eye contact.

“Okay,” Kevin agrees.  Elder McKinley moves away and sits back down at his desk. He clicks his pen.

“Will that be all, Elder?”

Kevin isn’t done, but he can be for now.

“Yes, I suppose so. Connor.”

He nods at him and looks back down at his papers. It is a clear dismissal, and for once, Kevin takes the hint.

Kevin’s back is turned and he has one foot out the door when Elder McKinley says, “For the record, you are the most suited for the job. I’ve been watching, you know. You’re a natural leader. And you’re not as screwed up as you think you are. I’m not changing the rota.”

Kevin smiles to himself all the way back to his room and doesn’t have the energy to figure out why.

***

It’s not that they argue a lot, per say. They just argue more than anybody else. Not that anyone else really argues, come to think of it. Not like they do, bickering over anything and everything, from the rota for the day to the finesse of another chapter of the Book of Arnold, or what they’re having for their evening meal. Kevin knows that people tense up when either one of them enters the room while the other is there. And Kevin isn’t too sure that their flimsy doors will hold up to much more slamming. Since they started, they haven’t been able to stop. Sometimes, Kevin worries he’s addicted. The hurtful things that flow out of his mouth feel so good when they’re out there, and hearing it echoed back to him is pleasurably painful. It’s so different to anything he’s experienced before, their strange relationship. Kevin just wants to keep pushing, to see how far they can go before they break.

“What is your problem with him?” Nabulungi asks one day. She has been teaching Kevin how to braid her hair and she’s sat in the v-shape of his legs.

“Who?” says Kevin, because even if Mormons can’t lie, that doesn’t mean that they can’t avoid the truth.

She tuts at him. “Don’t play stupid. I have enough stupid to deal with,” she says, and Kevin knows she’s talking about Arnold. It makes him smile.

Kevin shrugs even though she can’t see it. “I don’t have a problem with him.”

“You are always at each other, bickering. It’s annoying.”

Nabulungi is like a breath of fresh air. She is blunt and raw in a way like nobody else he’s ever met, because all he’s ever known is tight-lipped smiles and clean, white shirts.

“I don’t know what the problem is,” says Kevin. “There just is one.”

“You’re stupid,” says Nabulungi, and Kevin may or may not tug on her hair a little harder than necessary.

“You’re nosy,” Kevin says.

It’s cooler than it is most days here, and Kevin is incredibly grateful.  He even put his tie on, but he’s starting to look weirder with it than without it. 

“But then sometimes you stand so close to him and laugh so loudly. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Kevin knows that it doesn’t. He’s vaguely annoyed that Nabulungi is bringing it up before either he or Connor.

It’s like he can’t help himself. Connor makes him feel so many emotions that nobody else does. Ones that he can’t put names to, only experiences as physical sensations. He’s sort of like an odd rash that you can’t stop looking at and poking instead of leaving it alone like you should.

Kevin’s always had good self-control. Too good self-control.  Then Uganda happened and the heat frazzled his brain and he ended up with another man’s blood on his shirt and in his mouth and the Book of Mormon shoved up his – well. He’s been sort of having a constant breakdown ever since the plane landed.

“Before I knew you,” says Kevin.  “Back in America, I never cared about anyone else. I only cared about myself, and God, and nothing else mattered.”

“I don’t think I would have liked you very much,” Nabulungi says, but she shifts a little so her back presses further into Kevin’s chest.

“No,” says Kevin. “I don’t like me very much, either.”

“I like you now, stupid,” she says. “You are a mess. You are very interesting.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. It was – easier, before. You know. I mean, look at Connor. I was always so pleasant, and my only goal was to make myself the most likeable, most enviable, person in the room. Now it’s like I’m going out of my way to make him hate me. I can’t help it.”

“Exactly,” says Nabulungi. Kevin ties her hair off and she feels it from behind, then nods approvingly to herself. Kevin preens, but only a little. “Messy and interesting. You other white boys are so nice, it’s boring.”

Kevin hooks his chin over Nabulungi’s shoulder and thinks about this for a while. He’s been called many things in his life, but interesting isn’t one of them.

“Anyway,” says Nabulungi, “how long has he been Connor, and not Elder McKinley?”

Kevin pinches her sides and she shrieks until her eyes start watering. It suddenly occurs to him that he’s actually having fun, and then he’s laughing, arms wrapped around her stomach as she tries to squirm away.

“Hey white boy,” she murmurs. Kevin mock whispers, “What?”

“He’s watching us,” she says.

Connor is, indeed, watching them. Even from this angle, he looks vaguely disdainful. Goosebumps run up his arms and he can feel himself go bright red. He’s very glad that Nabulungi can’t see his face. Their eyes meet and Kevin looks away first. He tightens his arms around Nabulungi’s waist and she tuts at him.

“Stop it,” she says, “you’re doing it on purpose again.”

“No I’m not,” says Kevin, still watching the stiffness of Connor’s shoulders out of the corner of his eye. “Wait, doing what?”

“You know,” she waves her arm. Connor stands up abruptly and stalks off in the general direction of the hut. Kevin makes to stand up, too, but Nabulungi grabs his wrist. Kevin inevitably thinks about Connor’s fingers pressed tightly into the tiny bones there. “Don’t.”

Kevin relaxes. “Sorry,” he tells her, and she turns around to look at him. “I told you, I can’t help it.”

“Yes you can,” says Nabulungi, in the same matter-of-fact tone that Kevin uses. “All of your choices are your own.”

They stay there until the sun begins to set. She takes his hand and they walk back to the hut with their fingers interlocked. Nabulungi is nice, Kevin thinks. She’s the nicest person he’s ever met, and Kevin has spent his entire life around Mormons. She is the living proof Kevin needs; you don’t have to be polite to be a good, caring person. Arnold is so lucky to have her, and the thought of the two of them makes his heart swell. He’s like the Grinch. His heart was all shrivelled up and then he met Arnold, who made his heart grow to three times its size.

He kisses her on the cheek goodbye and waves her off from the doorway. It’s dark in the hut – the other Elders must have retired to their rooms already.

He kicks his shoes off at the door and loosens his tie. The room smells faintly of onions and he realises that he spent so long talking to Nabulungi that he missed dinner.

“Hello,” says Elder McKinley, and Kevin almost jumps out of his skin. “A little edgy, are we?”

“Elder,” Kevin nods to Connor who is standing by the door to the hall. He’s pretty sure the last time they spoke was about the merits of adding the romantic comedy genre to the Book of Arnold, so he’s a little confused by the tone, and why was Connor glaring at him and Nabulungi in the first place? He can glower all he wants, but Connor isn’t usually the one to prod first. He moves to go through the doorway but Connor throws up an arm to stop him. “I’m tired, Connor. Can we do this another day?”

“No,” says Connor.

“No?”

“No. I can’t believe you’re just going to go into your room and sleep next to Arnold as if nothing happened.”

“But – what are you talking about?”

“I saw the two of you! On the hillside.”

Kevin frowns. They’re stood very close, and Kevin takes a step back.

“Me and Nabulungi?”

“Yes, you and Nabulungi. Obviously. Does Arnold know?”

“Does Arnold know what?”

Connor makes a frustrated sound and rubs his hand over his face.

“Are you honestly this dense? Do you need me to spell it out for you?”

“I guess so.”

“Does Arnold know that you and Nabulungi are – you know. Together?”

Kevin blinks. Then he laughs, but this only seems to make Connor’s expression tighten.

“Oh – no. I mean, yes, he knows, but that’s not –“

“Are -” Connor suddenly looks very nervous – “is it that the three of you are…?”

“Heavenly Father, no.” Kevin is having a really hard time to shake the laughter from his face. He leans over Connor to flick the light switch and sees that Connor’s face has lost most of its hard edges and he just looks mostly hurt. It makes Kevin stop laughing. “No, we’re not like _that_. At all. Nabulungi was just teaching me how to braid her hair.”

“That’s not what it looked like to me.”

“She’s just my friend.”

“That’s not what friends do,” says Connor, with air quotes around the word ‘friends’. “Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” says Kevin.

“If you’re – with her – then you’re a terrible person-“

“Why do you care? You think I’m a terrible person already.”

“That’s not true,” says Connor, quietly.

“What?”

“I don’t think you’re a terrible person,” says Connor, louder.

“Oh,” says Kevin.

“Yeah,” Connor says.

Kevin can feel Connor’s breath on his face. He can count individual freckles. His head has that foggy feeling again.

“Besides,” says Connor, “you’re the one that has a problem with me.”

“I don’t have a problem with you.”

Connor scoffs. “Sure. Because you’ve been nothing but nice to me.”

Kevin thinks. He’s not sure if he’s ever been nice to Connor without Connor being nice first. It’s like he’s pissed off until proven complimented.

“I want to be,” Kevin decides to admit. “I’m just not sure how.”

“You clearly know how to be nice to Nabulungi,” Connor snaps.

“I suppose so,” says Kevin.

“And Arnold. And Elder Thomas. And Elder Church. And the kids at school. And – and everyone. Apart from me.”

Connor looks smaller. Kevin could have sworn they were almost the same height, but now he’s a whole head above him.

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin.

“You’re always sorry, eventually,” Connor shrugs. “But you never change. At first I thought you were the problem, that you had some – issues, or something. But then I realised it was just me.”

“I do,” Kevin grits his teeth. “I do have some – issues.”

Connor looks at his face for a long time.

“We all have issues,” says Connor. “You should keep them to yourself.”

“I’m not so good at turning things off.”

“Sure you are,” says Connor, and grabs his hand. Kevin startles. Connor traces the scab on the back of his hand with one finger. “Remember?”

“I remember.” Kevin feels uncomfortable.

“You might not like me, but I know you like Arnold. If there is anything going on—” Kevin opens his mouth but Connor shushes him. “If there’s anything going on between you and Sister Hatimbi, then you need to tell him.”

Connor turns on his heels and moves to walk away. Kevin is annoyed that Connor got the last word.

“I like you,” Kevin blurts, and Connor stops in his tracks but doesn’t turn around. “I do like you. I think that might be the problem.”

Connor stands with his back to him until he leaves Kevin alone in the doorway, watching him walk away.

***

In a frustrating turn of events, Kevin actually is quite a good teacher.

He likes children in a way that none of the others do. They seem to make the other Elders uncomfortable, which Kevin doesn’t think he’ll ever understand. Kids are so easy. Kids are all make-believe and all-knowing. They don’t have motives, they simply just are.

They seem to like him more than the other Elders, too. Kevin has grown up, but he hasn’t grown up that much. He likes attention. He doesn’t think he’ll ever not like attention. Kevin knows how to command a room and get people to listen to him, which as it turns out, is an excellent quality to teach a group of unruly children mathematics and English and life skills. Unfortunately, Elder McKinley might have had a point.

The other Elder that the kids like is Arnold, of course. Arnold looks and sounds funny – bless him – and gesticulates in big ways and adds sound effects to Kevin’s stories. Kevin’s favourite part of the week is Sunday School, which involves weekly retellings of Star Trek episodes to teach the children various moral lessons. Kevin has never seen an episode of Star Trek but it turns out he makes an excellent Captain.

Arnold is making spaceship noises that involve a lot of high-pitched beeping and whooshing sounds, two of the youngest riding on his shoulders, while Kevin talks about evil alien overlords and how they’re going to use the power of friendship and teamwork to defeat them, when a little girl called Kamali raises her hand (one of Kevin’s finer moments, he must say, was the lesson of turn-taking) and asks him what’s the difference between the telepathic, telekinetic alien overlords and God.

Kevin says, “Well, that’s a good question. God loves everybody, but the aliens only love themselves.”

“Mafala loves everybody, too.”

“That’s right. He does. That’s what makes him such a good leader.”

Kamali thinks about this for a while.

“Do you love everybody, Elder Price?”

Kevin, instinctively and without warning, looks at Arnold, and then his eyes flicker over to Connor helping to build a fire. He looks away as quickly as he looked over.

“Yes, I do. I love you especially,” and then proceeds to tickle her stomach until the handful of other children who aren’t waiting patiently for a ride on the spaceship climb all over him, wanting a turn. 

There’s a boy in class, Kamirakwo, who is a little older than the others and isn’t very patient because of it. He scowls at the younger ones as they laugh loudly and crawl over Kevin and Arnold. He’s difficult, takes longer to learn than the others, and doesn’t like to speak English. Kevin, who has first-hand knowledge of difficult people, asks him what’s wrong.

“Why should we love everybody?” Kamirakwo asks. “Some people are horrible.”

Kevin knows what he means.

“Well, we are all made in God’s image, even bad people. And we should love and be grateful for all of God’s gifts.”

“Men murdered my mother,” Kamirakwo tells him. “If God wants me to love them, then God needs to be better.”

Kevin doesn’t know what to say, because he believes, deep down, that Kamirakwo is right. There are some real rotten alien overlords out there that he needs answers from God for.

There are so many things that he could tell Kamirakwo right now, he could parrot his father with ‘God has his reasons for everything’ and ‘Heavenly Father punishes as he sees fit, and it is not up to us to do God’s work’ or maybe ‘God tests our faith in him with terrible circumstances, but that only makes our faith stronger’. He doesn’t tell him any of these things because even if Kevin’s devotion to Heavenly Father is wavering, right now he is still a Mormon, and Mormons don’t lie.

Kevin gestures for him to come closer and puts his arm around his small shoulders, and turns their backs to the class.

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” Kevin whispers, “but you have to promise that this is just between me and you, okay?”

Kamirakwo nods. “Okay,” he says.

“Thank you,” says Kevin. “The secret is that God is whoever, whatever you need Him to be. If you want those men to be punished, God will do that for you. If you want those men to be forgiven for their sins, God will make them redeem themselves for what they did and He will forgive them once they have proven themselves to Him. If you need to be angry at God, yell into the sky. If you need His help and guidance, all you have to do is pray."

Kamirakwo’s eyes soften and he nods.

“Thank you, Elder Price,” he says, and turns to play with the others. Kevin stares at his shoes for a long time before he turns and dismisses class.

Kevin is quiet for the rest of the day and Arnold gives him a funny look but Kevin waves him off with his hand. He eats dinner with the rest of them very quietly and only smiles when Connor kicks him under the table and says “turn that frown upside down, Elder, and eat some more rice.”

Kevin falls asleep that night repeating Bible verses over and over and over again until the buzzing in his head has settled down into a dull ache.

***

His wrist never quite seems to set properly after he fell out of the tree. He imagines, at fifteen, that if his life had been different and he hadn’t made the mistake, he might have been a better person. He’s often flustered and embarrassed when girls ask him to open a bottle for them and he can’t, and gets his only B in Gym class, where he can’t swing a bat or a racket in the same way as the other boys. He’s naturally athletic and excels at track and swimming, but can’t help but feel the burn of his classmate’s eyes as they watch him try to hit a ball with the same conviction that he feels.

He doesn’t have many friends but he has a lot of admirers. Kevin only knows the difference later in life. His faith puts people at arm’s length and he finds it difficult to listen to what others have to say, not because he finds them boring but simply because he doesn’t care about what other people think. He wonders if anybody knows, and figures they probably don’t care either.  School is a distraction from God. It fills the days between Sundays. He learns all of the history and literature he needs at home or at temple anyway. There are so many Godless people in classes with him, and his father tells him that they are distractions sent by Heavenly Father and Kevin learned his lesson about that already so he stays far away from them, even if they’re talking loudly about Disney movies or sharing gossip about people he can’t stand. One time a lovely looking girl asked him to hang out with her and her friends at the mall after school. She had very blonde hair and very dark eyes and Kevin pretended he felt nothing when he saw the hurt look on her face when he said no.

Kevin isn’t really one for taking big leaps, or risks, or anything like that. He’s never been to a party or made new friends that his parents didn’t introduce him to and he’s never tried any new foods or visited a different country.

He worries that he’s boring but he sees the look in people’s eyes when he talks to them, like he hung the moon. One day he hurts his wrist playing baseball so badly that he ends up red-faced in the nurse’s office and he decides that he’s going to prove them right. His mission training starts in the summer and he’s going to be the best missionary ever, he knows it.

The girl with the very blonde hair and the very dark eyes notices the bandage on his arm and says, sympathetically, that she heard what happened and she hopes he feels better soon.

Kevin, in what will later stick out as one his worst moments, asks her, do you believe in God?

“No,” she says, looking less confused than she should, but it’s not like Kevin isn’t vocal about his Mormon upbringing.

“I feel sorry for you,” says Kevin coldly. “Because you won’t be going to Heaven. No matter how nice you are, Heavenly Father will still punish you.”

He pretends he can’t hear her watery voice call his name as he walks away from her. She never talks to him again. Kevin is glad.

He goes to the training centre in summer. He starts brushing his teeth three times a day and smiles at himself in the mirror until he’s perfected it. He is praised beyond belief. His mission is going to be incredible, he knows it the same way he knows that God is real. Kevin Price is going to change the world.

***

“Knock knock,” says Connor, and Kevin smiles at him from his bed.

“Hello, Elder McKinley,” he says.

“Hi!” says Arnold enthusiastically. He jumps up from his bed and knocks his knee into the bedpost. “Fuck,” he says, clutching it, and then looks at Connor, mortified. “I’m sorry, uh – fudge, I mean, I said fudge, right? Ha ha!”

Connor shrugs his shoulders. “Elder Price curses all the time. He’s a bad influence, I see.”

“Bullshit,” says Kevin, and he’s pleased when Connor laughs.

“Besides,” says Connor, “our Prophet sets the rules, right? I’m pretty certain you of all people don’t need to worry about breaking them.”

“I guess,” says Arnold, like this is a novel idea, as if he hadn’t been setting the rules for the past five months. “But I really should be setting a good example, right?”

“You do,” says Kevin, hotly, “you’re the best. You don’t need to change a thing.”

Arnold turns red and Connor looks away from a moment, before turns back to them both with a composed face. Kevin remembers a conversation – the three of you, you aren’t?

Whatever. It’s none of Connor’s business, anyway.

“What do you want?” says Kevin, and hates the way it comes out.

“I don’t want anything,” Connor says, the corners of his mouth turned down.

“Okay,” says Kevin, “then why are you here?”

Arnold kicks him.

“He gets grouchy,” he shrugs apologetically at Connor.

“I’m well aware.”

They all sit quietly and uncomfortably until Connor says, “well, have a nice day, Elders,” and leaves.

Kevin can feel Arnold’s eyes on him. He opens his mouth, but Kevin has already left the room.

“Connor,” he says, and catches his arm from behind. Kevin can see the sigh in his shoulders.

“Elder Price,” he says. “You are impossible.”

He turns round to look at Kevin, and Kevin wonders how he always ends up with his face inches away from Connor’s on a semi-regular basis.

“Yeah,” says Kevin.

“I’m not going to – I’m too tired to argue today.”

“Never stopped us before,” says Kevin, and he sees Connor’s mouth quirk out of the corner of his eye.

“True,” says Connor. “So what are we fighting about?”

“Me being a jerk?”

“Rings a bell,” Connor says.

“I don’t know – I don’t know why.”

“I know. I shouldn’t take it personally, right?”

Kevin, ever honest Kevin, says, like an idiot, “No, you should.”

Connor takes a step back. Kevin winces.

“Are you capable of spending one entire day without being horrible?”

“That’s not -” he reaches out to touch Connor, who recoils – “that’s not what I mean. That came out wrong.”

“You have a habit of that,” says Connor. “You always lie in a way that looks like you’re telling nothing but the truth.”

Kevin doesn’t know what to do with that.

“I meant,” Kevin takes a deep breath and doesn’t look Connor in the eye, “That it is personal. It’s only you. It’s only ever been you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” says Kevin. “But it is the truth.”

The light in the hallway is dim and there are no windows so even when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, there’s the illusion of an evening. Kevin takes another step towards Connor.

“You’re an idiot,” says Connor.

“Yeah,” Kevin agrees. “And you’re – prickly.”

“Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

“No,” says Kevin, “I just assume I always look good.”

Connor laughs, really laughs, and Kevin smiles back.

Kevin, in one of the impulsive moves he makes sometimes and tries not to think about for too long after because it’s already happened and there’s nothing he can do about it now, steps forward and pulls Connor into a hug.

“What,” says Connor, stiffly, arms by his sides.

“Shut up,” says Kevin, and presses his nose into Connor’s shoulder.

They stand like that, for a while, and Connor never moves his arms but he does tilt his head, pressing his cheek into Kevin’s hairline.

“Thank you,” says Kevin, pulling away.

“No problem,” says Connor, looking at him curiously.

Kevin shrugs. He feels better. He liked the way it felt, to hold something warm and hold it fondly. Recently, he’s only wanted to break things.

“What did you come in our room for, anyway?”

“Oh!” Connor says, “Right. Well, Afiya and Kiho got engaged.”

“That’s awesome,” says Kevin. “We should keep working on building the church, speed it up, so they can get married in it.”

“That comes later,” Connor waves his hand. “Tonight we are having a party.”

“Really?”

“With alcohol,” and Connor hums in that amused way he does when he breaks rules.

“Oh,” says Kevin.

“I _know,_ ” Connor says. “It’s going to be so much fun.”

Connor leads him out of the hallway by his hand and details the plan, gleefully, even though he was mad at him five minutes ago. There isn’t much of one, other than who’s going to cook and who’s going to wrangle everyone into performing some music, if they can’t get Nabulungi’s second-hand radio to work. It feels good, though. To plan something fun, not church related, but Kevin is overwhelmingly nervous and he can’t put his finger on why. He feels like he’s going to prom or something, and is afraid he’s going to get drunk just by being near alcohol and his parents will find out and he’ll get punished.

So he says, to Arnold, later while everyone else is dancing and laughing and eating, “fuck it,” and takes a long, long drink from the bottle while Arnold cheers and yells “chug, chug chug!”

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” says Arnold, with that wistful, dreamy look of his.

“Me too,” says Kevin, and takes another swig.

Everyone is so happy that it’s bound to rub off on Kevin, too. He feels lighter and looser than he has in a while. Like he was suffering from a terrible backache that he didn’t realise he had until it was gone. Connor would call that ‘the stick up his ass’ and the thought of it makes Kevin laugh to himself.

There is a lot of shouting and it’s hard to hear anyone but he dances with Nabulungi until the music turns slower and it starts to feel a little bit weird for their bodies to be pressed so close together, so he takes her over to a hiccupping Arnold. When he looks up he expects to see Connor’s dark eyes watching him, the way they did yesterday, and probably the day before that, but he finds Connor not looking at him at all. He is talking to some of the villagers whose names Kevin doesn’t know, because they’re more their age, and Kevin only really knows the children and their parents here. It suddenly occurs to him that Connor has friends in Uganda. Whole parts of his life that Kevin has no idea about. He knows that everybody here has huge chunks of secrets from before, that maybe aren’t secrets but just things never shared, but everybody knows everything in Kitguli. He can’t stop staring at Connor’s mouth and how it looks, playing with a smile that Kevin has never seen before. It bothers him.

“You could just talk to him,” Elder Church appears next to him. Kevin jumps, belatedly. “You know, like a normal person.”

Kevin thinks he’s going to say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ but instead he says, “We do talk. All the time.”

Elder Church snorts.

“Yelling isn’t talking. Staring at each other while the other one isn’t looking is not talking.”

“It’s hard,” says Kevin, unable to stop himself. Elder Church doesn’t know all the dark and horrible things inside of him, that sticky blackness that everything gets caught in, and it’s nice to just have an open conversation with somebody who thinks he’s halfway normal. “For me. To make friends.”

“That’s what you think this is?” says Elder Church. “Making friends?”

“What else would it be?” says Kevin, confused. Elder Church pats him on the shoulder absent-mindedly.

“You’re already friends.”

“I don’t have any friends,” mourns Kevin. “Apart from Arnold, and Nabulungi, but they have each other. I don’t have anyone.”

“You’re – are you okay?”

“Not really,” says Kevin, and if Kevin never knew when to shut his mouth before he definitely didn’t know how hard being drunk would make it. “Sometimes I think I might be going insane and I have no one to talk to about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Elder. You can talk to anyone you like about it. We are all your friends. Elder McKinley is already your friend. I’m your friend. Look, here we are, being friends, talking about it.”

“You’re – you consider me a friend?”

“Oh my gosh,” says Elder Church, and it always takes Kevin a moment too long to realise when somebody is getting frustrated at him. “You really are as big of an idiot as he says you are.”

“Oh,” says Kevin. “You know what, you’re right. I’m going to talk to him.”

“Maybe you should talk to him _sober_ ,” Eder Church says behind him. Kevin is already halfway towards Connor when he realises that Elder Church might have had the right idea. But then he doesn’t understand why Connor, being the metaphorical dead horse that he keeps beating into the ground, continues to get back up. And he trusts that Connor will get back up again, if Kevin screws up. He’s drunk. He’s drunk for the first time ever. As far as he’s concerned that’s a pretty good excuse for trying to talk about, well, feelings.

When his feet have taken him as far as he can go, and Connor looks at him, and the two boys who he’s been talking to look at him, Kevin opens his mouth like a goldfish and has absolutely nothing to say.

“Elder Price,” Connor smiles at him, after a moment. “This is Ouma and Taamiti. They’re helping me build the church.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Kevin. It takes a moment of awkward silence to realise, alarmingly, that they don’t actually know who he is. His reputation usually precedes him. “I’m Kevin. Kevin Price. Elder Price.”

“You have never had alcohol before, have you?” laughs the one who Kevin thinks is Taamiti. “Cute.”

Connor, alarmingly, grabs Kevin’s nose and wiggles it.

“He sure is,” says Connor.

“He has also never been drunk before,” they both laugh. Kevin hates feeling like he’s being laughed at. What he hates more, though, is feeling like Mormonism is being laughed at.

Connor must see the look on his face because he hits his arm and says, “Stop it, don’t worry. They’ve been baptised.”

Just because they’ve been baptised doesn’t mean they’re Mormons. Being a Mormon is sort of an all-or-nothing kind of deal. They don’t _know_. They don’t know anything.

“I want to talk to you,” says Kevin, eyeing the two boys carefully.

“Later,” says Connor, doing that waving him off with his hand thing that he does all the time. Kevin, feeling wound up again, huffs off and moves back towards the main camp.

“That went terribly,” sighs Elder Church and Kevin glares at him. He passes him the bottle. “Drink more. It helps.”

It does help. He forgets all the things he hates about himself (mostly), how awkward he feels around other people (kind of), and Connor (only not at all, actually). He dances. He dances badly, rotating kids taking turns to dance on his feet, dances with Arnold, who as always, makes Kevin feel like less of an idiot by being a bigger idiot. He congratulates Afiya and Kohi at least three times, forgetting that he’s already congratulated them, and they give him smiles that are just as warm as they were before.

He’s swaying slightly with Kamali on his shoulders, watching the fire crackle, and he knows that he’s too drunk to be handling small children but she’s got a pretty good grip on his hair and nobody else seems too worried about it.

“This is fun,” he says to no one at all. Kamali says, “Fun is fun,” and it makes Kevin laugh so hard she almost falls off his shoulders.

“Good girl,” he tells her.

His eyes drift over the scene in front of him, watching Elder Neeley and Elder Michaels try to remember old school dances, and spluttering when they kick up dust. He watches Mafala’s easy arm resting around Arnold’s shoulders while they whisper something together. He sees Nabulungi serving food and sneaking bites off of everyone’s plates. Elder Church and Elder Thomas are playing what looks like snap, but a very slow game of snap where sometimes they only remember to say wait, wait, snap, after they’ve already played two more cards. Afiya and Kohi are kissing in a way which Kevin would previously have stuck his nose up at as inappropriate, but today it just makes him feel warm and happy.

“Hello,” says Connor, when Kevin notices him walking towards him.

“Hello,” says Kevin. He jiggles Kamali. “Say hello, Kamali.”

“Hello,” she says, and she sounds suspicious.

“This is Elder McKinley, remember?”

Connor waves stiffly. Kevin always forgets how awkward he is around children.

“Kamali, would you mind if I borrowed Elder Price for a while?”

“Yes.”

Connor bites his lip. Kevin thinks it’s _adorable._ But Kevin thinks everybody is adorable. Probably because of the wine. Kamali is being extra adorable right now, because at some point she chose Kevin to be her favourite, and chose herself to be appointed as Kevin’s favourite, and Kevin is reluctant to let go of her.

It isn’t until Kevin remembers that he wanted to talk to Connor, and Connor says, “But I’d really like to dance with Elder Price. You’ve been dancing with Elder Price all night, it’s been making me quite jealous,” that Kevin wants to be alone with him.

“No,” says Kamali, gripping his hair tighter.

“Come on, Kamali, remember our lesson about sharing?”

She yawns. It is way past her bedtime, anyway. It’s way past their bedtime, back when they had a bedtime.

“I promise I’ll give him back,” says Connor, and Kevin takes her off his shoulders, and smiles when she falls asleep on his chest. Connor looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. 

Kevin pulls a face which he hopes is apologetic and goes to find her mom. She is also fairly drunk, and looks surprised that she has a daughter at all when he hands her over. She holds her like she’s the most precious thing she’s ever been given. Kevin feels proud, but he’s not sure of what.

He half expects Connor to have moved on by the time he gets back but he’s still glued to the spot, hands in his pockets, looking incredibly awkward.

“Wanna dance? I love this one.”

Connor narrows his eyes. “You have never heard this song before in your life.”

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s in Swahili.”

“I run in very multicultural circles,” says Kevin. Connor laughs, slightly hysterical, and grabs his hand.

The party is dwindling down, less people dancing and more people stretched out lazily on blankets or soft chairs, but it doesn’t occur to Kevin until about twenty minutes too late that people might be watching them.

They’re mostly tap dancing, Kevin tripping his own feet while Connor laughs at him, and then it gets messy and Kevin sops caring what his arms are doing because well, he’s having a good time. There are moments, when they are stood far too close – really, really close – and Kevin, and his big, drunken mouth, tell Connor his eyes look like fireflies.

“My eyes are blue,” says Connor, brushing off the moment like Kevin hadn’t just said the most monumentally weird thing he’s ever said in his life.

“I know,” says Kevin, and untangles himself from Connor’s grip. “I know lots of things about you,” and then his legs proceed to wobble and Connor catches him. He sighs.

“Come on,” he says, tucking himself under Kevin’s arm to prop him up. Connor is surprisingly strong – Kevin isn’t exactly small.

“You are surprisingly strong,” Kevin says.

“You’re drunk,” Connor laughs, leading him away. “And heavy.”

Kevin sings softly to himself, some hymn or other to pass the time and Connor’s hair tickles his cheek. Connor is leading him somewhere that Kevin doesn’t know where, and he thinks about how his parents would feel, watching their drunk son being taken somewhere dark and secluded in the forest by a strange man. He snorts.

“Here we are,” says Connor. Kevin blinks. It’s dark but they’re by the water and the moon is reflecting off it giving the illusion of light.

“Where are we?”

“This is my favourite spot,” smiles Connor, proudly. “I found it when I got lost.”

“It’s beautiful,” says Kevin, a little breathlessly, and then he’s hit by nausea again. “Satan has power over the water, you know. This is very rebellious of you,” and then he hiccups so violently he sees stars.

“Okay, okay, here you go,” says Connor, placing him a little ungracefully on the grass then plodding down next to him. “It’s cute, isn’t it?”

Kevin nods, then regrets it as he feels his brain knocking into his skull a moment later.

“Ow,” says Kevin, leaning on one elbow and clutching his head with other.

“Drama queen,” Connor says and scratches the back of Kevin’s head lightly, for a moment. “You’re a mess, did you know that?”

“So I’ve been reliably informed,” Kevin mumbles.

“If you’re going to throw up, go do it in the river.”

“Too far,” says Kevin, swatting at nothing. “Too far away.”

“How much did you drink?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. How are you?”

Connor blinks. “I’m fine, Elder Price. Do you need some water?”

“No. No, I need you.”

Kevin hardly finds it in himself to feel embarrassed. He probably won’t remember this tomorrow, anyway.

“Kevin?”

“Hm? Oh, right. That was.”

“Kind of a creepy thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Kevin sighs. Connor’s eyes are wide and bright.

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“Did I?” says Kevin. Connor whacks him round the back of the head. “Jesus, okay. It was more of a – spur of the moment kind of thing.” 

“Right,” Connor says. He’s sat cross legged, head bent down to be more on level with Kevin’s. “Spur of the moment. That’s a big thing for you.”

“What does that mean?” Kevin asks, even though he knows exactly what that means. “I wanted to ask you to be my friend.”

“What?”

“Look,” says Kevin, not feeling anywhere close to sober enough to have this conversation. “I don’t – I don’t know what we, what this is.”

“Yeah, well. Me either.” Kevin shifts on the ground. It’s so quiet, none of the sounds of Kitguli follow the winds this way. “We’ve been through this, haven’t we? You’ll decide you hate me one day and tolerate me another, and sometimes, God forbid, you act like you actually enjoy my company.”

“That’s not very nice,” Kevin frowns. “That’s not very nice of me, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Connor snorts. “Are you – are you pouting?”

“No,” Kevin says, and sucks his lower lip behind his top teeth.

“What is with you? You’re the most, how can you be so self-aware and just – be okay with it.”

“I have a hole inside me,” Kevin tells him, and puts Connor’s hand on his chest. Connor pulls it away.

“Kevin, why do you have to make everything weird?”

“I really like you,” Kevin says. “That’s what, that’s what I was going to tell you. Earlier.”

“I’m tired, Kevin. I’ll keep – I’ll keep doing, what we do. But you have to, um.”

“No,” says Kevin. “No, listen.” He closes his eyes. “I want, I want to be around you all the time, and I don’t. I can’t, I’ve never, before. It’s difficult.”

“Sure, everything is so hard for Kevin Price. Tell me more.”

“Don’t call me that,” Kevin snaps. “My name is just Kevin. I hate it when you call me that. You say – you say my name like it’s an insult.”

“Sorry,” says Connor. “Sorry, I won’t. Of course you’re Kevin, just Kevin. I never meant that, you know.”

“No, I get it. I’ve spent more time with Kevin Price, Mormon poster boy than anyone. People think I hung the moon,” he gestures to the sky. “Thought I hung the moon.”

“I wouldn’t be that surprised to find out that you did,” says Connor, and Kevin stares at him with his mouth open.

“That’s – that’s a really nice thing to say,” says Kevin. His elbows give way and then he’s flat on his back, wincing. Connor lays down next to him. “You get defensive very easily.”

“Maybe,” admits Connor. “Kind of have some – you know. Emotional baggage.”

Kevin laughs. “You have no idea.”

“So what – what did you mean? About – wanting to be around me all the time?”

“Um,” says Kevin, running a hand over his face. “The fighting, I mean. I’ve been thinking about it a lot tonight and, well, it’s just that you’re. You.”

“What are you talking about it?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin says, frustrated that his words are coming out back to front. “You’re addictive.”

Connor looks like he’s been slapped.

“Oh,” he says. He stares up at the sky and doesn’t say anything else.

“I think I’m probably pushing you away, on purpose.”

The back of Connor’s hand touches the back of Kevin’s. It jolts up his arm, all the way to his shoulder.

“So stop pushing,” says Connor, as if it’s as simple as that. Maybe it is. They lay side by side, for a while, unusually grateful for Uganda’s heat. “What are you so afraid of?” he asks after a while, but Kevin has already fallen asleep.

***

There’s a letter in his parent’s handwriting sitting on his pillow. Kevin is sat on Arnold’s bed with his hands linked together under his chin, determined to win the staring contest.

“I don’t care about you,” he tells the letter. The envelope ignores him. “I mean, what could you possibly say that I haven’t already heard?”

The envelope remains passive, unopened. Its blue ink commands Kevin’s attention, draws his eyes to the swirl of the K and P.

“I mean, what’s the occasion? It’s not Christmas or Easter or my birthday. So this isn’t some token card or something. So you can only have something important that my parents wanted to tell me. Which is probably exactly the opposite of what I want my parents to tell me. So why would I open you?”

He wishes the envelope would give him a sign: to read or not to read?

“You’re only going to tell me, you’re a disappointment Kevin, you’re worthless without your achievements, blah blah. Maybe I’ve been officially excommunicated. But wouldn’t that come from more official channels? Maybe they’re trying to give me a heads up, or something.”

Kevin’s curiosity is getting the better of him. He’s leaning further forward.

“Oh my gosh, what if somebody died?” He’s leant so far forward that he could hear the envelope if it whispered. It doesn’t.

“I hate you,” Kevin tells the letter, with feeling, before he reaches over to grab it.

At least on the phone, he only had to hear it once. Now he can read it over and over again and then again some more later and really commit the words to memory.

Arnold comes back from his shower with his stupid big goofy smile, when he sees Kevin sat on the bed clutching the letter. His face falls.

“Oh, buddy,” says Arnold, and sits down next to him.

“It’s fine,” says Kevin. “It’s nothing I didn’t already know.”

“Just rubbing salt into the wound, huh?” Arnold’s hand is moving in small circles on Kevin’s back.

“You could say that. I think they were just, I don’t know, getting some stuff off their chest.”

“Maybe you should do that, too. Write back to them. Tell them to get lost.”

“Might as well,” Kevin sighs. “They’ve all but told me I’m on my own. I think the longer I stay here, the closer I get to losing them forever.”

“So you have to make a choice,” says Arnold. Kevin can’t even find it in his heart to be mad at him. He’s a soothing person to be around. He is the calm in the middle of the storm, albeit a very loud and reckless one. He would pick Arnold over anything, but he’s not sure if he’d pick him over being alone and poor and homeless.

“I know that,” says Kevin.

“So. What are you going to choose?”

“It’s not that simple. I have to think about it.”

“I respect that, pal,” Arnold shrugs. “But isn’t that all you’ve been thinking about?”

Kevin rests his cheek on the top of Arnold’s head.

“Maybe. Kind of. Sometimes I think – the only reason why I’m still here is because I have nowhere else to go.”

“I’m not asking you to leave the Church,” Arnold says. “I’m asking you to leave your parents.”

“It’s the same thing,” says Kevin. “I can’t have one or the other.”

“I think that you should. Leave them. I mean it’s your choice, but.”

“But what will I do when I leave?”

Kevin doesn’t know where he will go. He’s been trying not to think about it, but they’re only going to be here for another year and a half, which isn’t that long when you think about all of the years that are going to follow. He doesn’t have a job lined up. He has no money. He has no place to go. He doesn’t have any family who will help him or friends who will put him up if he leaves the Church and help him get back on his feet.

But on the other hand, he’s had a taste of freedom and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to give it up. To stuff all that has become of Kevin Price back into a clean pressed shirt and a tie and glue him to a pew. He is coffee and sunshine and late-night talks and long mornings and loving to all things, of all shapes and sizes, to all faiths and beginnings and endings. A lot of him is Uganda, and a lot of him is Arnold, and the rest of him is everything he’s worked so hard to change about himself. Even if he did go home, now, his family wouldn’t recognise him. He’s tanned and has flecks of blonde in his hair and he fills up less space in the room than he used to.

But he’s also got that hole, dark and sticky, inside his chest that can’t be filled no matter how much he absorbs. And that only started opening up after the Arnold Incident and losing his faith. Didn’t it?

“Well, we’ll be together, won’t we?” says Arnold, matter-of-factly. “I’d do anything for you. You’re my best friend.”

Kevin thinks about this for a while. Arnold lets him be quiet, which is a rarity, and it makes the moment feel heavy and somewhat monumental.

“We’ll – we’ll move in together? Like, no parents?”

“Sure we will,” says Arnold. “We can live somewhere dirt cheap, you know, anything will feel like a blessing after living in a hut. We won’t even need air conditioning.”

“And we’ll get jobs?”

“Of course, buddy. I’ll be a struggling children’s author and you’ll be – what will you be?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before. I was just always going to be, you know. Super Mormon. I’ve never really excelled at anything else.”

“That’s not true,” says Arnold, sitting up and swivelling to look at him properly. He takes Kevin’s letter out of his hands and places it on the bedside table. “You could be, I don’t know, a social worker. Helping people. You’re good at that. Or – or a motivational speaker!”

Kevin sits up straight and looks Arnold in the eye.

“I could be a teacher,” says Kevin. “You’ll be a struggling children’s author and I’ll be a teacher.”

“You could read my stories to the class!”

“That’s what we do now,” says Kevin, slowly, thinking. “And we’re pretty good at it.”

“We’re an awesome team.”

Arnold is smiling at him, always smiling, and Kevin smiles back.

“You’re the best best friend I could have asked for.”

Arnold shrugs, like Kevin’s words mean nothing, but Kevin knows they mean everything to him.

“Took you long enough to figure it out.”

“It did,” says Kevin, and he pushes Arnold’s shoulder.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Sooooo, what are you going to do?”

Kevin thinks. “Nothing,” he says. “I like – your way sounds much better than the other way.”

“That is how I became a prophet,” says Arnold like it’s the most serious thing in the world. Kevin laughs. “Stop laughing, it’s true.”

“I know,” says Kevin. “I’m not going to write them back. They don’t deserve my time.”

“Good,” says Arnold. “Wanna burn the letter?”

“You know, I really do.”

They throw it into the campfire later that night and watch as the paper quickly disappears. Some of the other Elders have joined them, not knowing what they were doing or why they were doing it but it felt important. Connor turns up a little while later and sits down in between Elder Davis and Kevin.

“What’s the occasion?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing special,” says Kevin, and bumps his shoulder.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for all of the love, guys! Your kudos and comments really do mean a lot to me as I worked on this monster of a fic for five months and it's lovely to know that there are actual people reading it rather than just little old me. Please enjoy part two! The last part will be posted soon...

It’s still light out when Kevin’s brain slowly turns itself on. He can tell because the inside of his eyelids look vaguely pink. There is something very soft and squishy under his face and it feels nice and warm, so he turns further into it, before he feels a button scrape on his face and he realises he’s laid on someone. Elder McKinley, he helpfully remembers. Of course it’s Elder McKinley. Kevin’s book is digging awkwardly into his side, but he doesn’t move, remembers to control his breathing, and stays quiet.

He listens to Connor’s breaths and feels the rise and fall of his chest and tries to figure out if he’s asleep. He think he must be, if he hasn’t already moved Kevin, but then the bell over the door goes and Connor says hello.

“Shh,” says Connor when footsteps shuffle in. “He’s asleep.”

Kevin can feel his voice vibrating on his skin. He’s afraid to move, afraid he’ll be caught out, and he’ll have to leave and everyone will know that he pretended to be asleep because it felt nice to be so close to someone, and feels pathetic.

“Is he okay?” a whispered voice says. Elder Michaels.

“Just tired, I think,” Connor shrugs and jostles Kevin. “I don’t want to wake him.”

“I thought you hated him?” says Elder Thomas. He sounds incredulous.

“Sometimes,” whispers Connor. “Mostly he’s okay.”

Kevin can’t hear the rest of the whispered words properly, because Connor leant forward slightly, and now his ear is squished between the couch and Connor, so he thinks he can hear ‘whatever you say’ but they could have said anything. He doesn’t mind. He’s kind of afraid to hear any more.

“No,” says Connor, and Kevin can feel every word vibrating in his cheekbone. “No, I think he’s lonely.”

Connor strokes his hair back from his forehead. Kevin is amazed that Connor is doing this in front of other people, assumed that these weird too-friendly moments were something unspoken and private between them. He doesn’t mind it. It is quiet until somebody coughs.

“It’s okay, you go ahead,” Connor says to the whispers. “I’ll stay here with him. I don’t think he’s been sleeping very well.”

Kevin hears vague goodbyes and tries not to be pleased that Connor chose him over the others. He’s halfway successful, but he knows that Connor is only staying with him out of a weird sense of obligation, as his district leader, or maybe as his – whatever, and that just makes him mostly sad.

But Connor’s hand is still stroking his hair, and Kevin definitely doesn’t think he’s obligated to do that.

“I know you’re awake,” Connor sighs, still whispering, still moving his fingers through his hair. “You don’t have to pretend to be asleep, they’ve gone.”

There’s not really anything to say, so Kevin keeps quiet. He shifts his head so he’s laid more comfortably, and moves his book out of the way. Connor’s hand doesn’t stop moving. Kevin keeps his eyes closed.

They lay just like that for a while, until the pressure from Connor’s hand trails off, and he snores lightly. Kevin stays with him, too. Kevin knows that Connor hasn’t been sleeping well either.

***

Just like that, they stop fighting. Mostly. Sometimes Kevin can feel them both getting worked up, but he can see Connor physically stop himself and smile at him, so Kevin does the same. And it’s as easy as that, only it isn’t, because Kevin still wants to push all of Elder McKinley’s buttons. Arnold says it’s because he’s bored and he gives Kevin some knitting needles he found at the market with Nabulungi. Kevin had said to him, “this is a stupid present, why would anyone wear a wool scarf in Uganda,” and Arnold had, quite unkindly, told him to stick them up his ass. Kevin does not stick them up his ass, but he does use them to fetch things out from under the bed because he doesn’t want his hand to get eaten by spiders.

It’s weird, not-fighting with Connor. Their relationship feels just as intense without the arguing as it did with it. Now they have those weird, heavy moments together without the preamble. A significant look, or Connor putting his hand on Kevin’s neck when he’s too anxious, or occasionally running hands through hair. It didn’t feel weird, before, because it wasn’t like they liked each other very much anyway and they were running on adrenaline. Now it definitely feels weird.

Kevin doesn’t really know what to do about it. He’s not sure he would have it any other way, if he could choose. He likes it. It makes him feel like he has something other people don’t. Kevin has always enjoyed that feeling, the selfishness of having something all to yourself. And if that’s Elder McKinley’s attention, well, that’s fine with Kevin.

Kevin appreciates, for the most part, that it means that Connor is still there when Kevin is having a little meltdown. He has flashes of memories that make him vibrate, sometimes, and Connor always steadies his knee with his hand. When it’s too hot and Kevin is too tired and the kids are being too much, Connor mysteriously appears out of nowhere to give Kevin a five minute break. Kevin is pretty sure that Connor doesn’t do that kind of thing for any of the others. Or maybe it’s just that Kevin is the only one seemingly having meltdowns in the first place.

He wonders what Connor thinks about all this. It’s not like they talk about it. If they talk about it, they’ll argue, and they’re not doing that anymore. Maybe most of it is normal. Kevin has never really had any friends before, other than Arnold, but they’re weirdly close too. Kevin sure does have a type.

Kevin is sat on a low wall next to where Connor is laying the foundations for the last side of the church. He thinks about all this as he watches him work, his tongue sticking out as he concentrates, and smiles at how his hair has gone wild at the back where he’s been reflexively scrunching it all day. Arnold and Nabulungi are off wherever Arnold-and-Nabulungi go to, and Kevin was bored. Class had been over for hours, and it’s not like they have a great selection of books or anything, so Kevin came here to bother Connor. The sun is starting to set, but Connor doesn’t seem to have noticed.

He looks up at Kevin, who waves awkwardly. Connor narrows his eyes at him and continues pacing, muttering something to himself. He’s very expressive, and it makes him enjoyable to be around. Kevin is glad that they stopped getting under each other’s feet, if it means he gets to have moments like this. The sun is warm and sleepy, not hot and sticky. He can feel himself start to nod off with his head in his hands, head swimming with all the things he would let himself say to Connor if they were still fighting.

“Elder Price,” Connor says. It’s the first thing either of them have said since Kevin got there an hour ago, and it makes Kevin jump.

“Yes?”

“Are you dying?”

“No?”

Connor is stood with his hand on his hip, head cocked to the side. It makes Kevin’s back straighten, instinctively.

“Are you grievously injured?”

Kevin looks down at himself and makes a big show of checking himself out for wounds.

“Nope,” Kevin confirms.

“Then you can get up here and work, then, can’t you?”

Kevin groans. He’s so tired. He should not be trusted to hold a hammer.

“Do I have to?”

“If you value your life.”

Kevin reluctantly trudges over to where Connor is standing.

“What would you like me to do, sir?”

“Stand here,” Connor places Kevin where he wants him. Then he stands behind him, presses his chest to his back, and angles Kevin’s head with his hand.

“Um,” says Kevin, because he feels like he should say something. He’s mostly just amused.

“Look,” Connor says. Kevin sees a large frame made out of wood sticking out of the ground, connected to an identical frame at a perpendicular angle. “Doesn’t that look wonky to you?”

Kevin squints. Now he mentions it, it kind of is. It doesn’t look very sturdy.

“A little?” Kevin offers, and winces when Connor headbutts his back.

“I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it.”

Kevin lets Connor rest his head on his back as long as he needs to. He doesn’t know the first thing about building anything, and feels a little helpless.

“You’ll work it out,” he says, and Connor huffs.

“It feels like I’ve already been doing this forever. I really think I bit off more than I could chew, here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Kevin, “You can do anything.”

Connor is quiet. Kevin narrows his eyes at the skeleton of the building, like if he stares at it long enough it might start to make sense to him.

“How were the kids today?” asks Connor.

“Oh, they were fine,” says Kevin. “Kamali ruined my shirt, though. I’m down to two.”

Connor laughs and pulls away from him.

“I was thinking,” says Connor, slowly. “That we could go to the market soon. We can pick up some supplies and food, and maybe we could get, you know. Non-Mormon clothes?”

Kevin had never thought about wearing anything other than a shirt and trousers, but now he’s imagining having shorts in this heat, and a loose, soft t-shirt, and he’s already itching to get out of his clothes.

“That feels,” Kevin says, “really, really wrong, for some reason.”

“Doesn’t it?” says Connor. “You can drink coffee and let your hair grow out and use God’s name in vain a dozen times a day, but the thought of wearing a hoodie feels insane.”

“I want sneakers,” says Kevin, looking mournfully at his stiff, once-polished shoes. “We all need sneakers.”

Connor beams at him, and Kevin smiles back.

“So it’s settled,” says Connor. “Next Saturday?”

“It’s a date,” says Kevin, and then imagines punching himself in the face. Connor scrunches his nose.

“Buy me dinner first,” he says, and heads back towards the hut. “Come on, it’s getting dark.”

Kevin trails behind him. He manages to make it five minutes down the hill before he opens his mouth.

“I didn’t mean an actual date,” he says. “That’s not something I would. Uh. Not that you’re not, you know.”

“Elder Price,” says Connor. “Shut up.”

“And I couldn’t afford to take you to dinner, anyway. I’m broke. I couldn’t provide a secure future for you. I’ll save you the heartbreak now.”

He falls into step with Connor and grins at him. Connor slaps him on the arm.

“Aw, shucks. It’s not like I’m asking you to go steady. Live on the wild side a little.”

“Who are you supposed to be?” says Kevin. “That was terrible.”

“Get lost,” says Connor, smiling. “We are nineteen years old, we have our whole lives ahead of us. Screw secure futures. It’s about here and now, right?”

Kevin nods. “Latter Day doesn’t mean afterlife, it means tomorrow.”

“Right,” Connor says. He hums to himself, a tune that Kevin doesn’t recognise. “Screw the past, too.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” says Kevin. “Screw the past.”

***

When it rains in Kitguli, it pours.

The Elders have learned this the hard way, several times over. The clouds darken and everybody huddles inside, because screw proselytising for twelve hours of the day anyway.

“I hate it when it does this,” says Elder Thomas. He’s cross legged on the floor attempting to make a house of cards, which proves difficult when the floor is shaking. “It never rained in California.”

“To be fair,” says Elder Michaels. “It never rains here, either. It’s a nice break from the heat, once you ignore the thunder.”

“And the lightning.”

“And the wind.”

“Okay, okay, I get your point,” says Elder Michaels.

Elder Church waves his hand up from where he’s lying on his back on the floor. “Don’t complain, comrades,” he says, sounding as bored as ever. “This is bonding time. Don’t you feel closer to each other already?”

“Literally,” says Elder Neeley. “Look at Elder Cunningham. He’s become one with my shirt.”

Arnold is sat upright against the wall, his head resting on Elder Neeley’s shoulder. He’s definitely drooling a little.

“How can he sleep through this,” says Elder Thomas in awe. A huge clap of thunder makes them all jump.   
  
“He can sleep through anything,” says Kevin. “It’s a remarkable skill.”

“He’s got a lot of those,” says Elder Church. Kevin is laid next to him on the floor. They all remain quiet for a few moments, ignoring the sound of the rain and wind to concentrate on the sound of Arnold snoring. Kevin sits bolt upright.

“Where’s Elder McKinley?”

He does a headcount: Elder Neeley and Arnold are by the wall, Elder Church is next to him, Elder Thomas is sat under the table, Elder Michaels has stolen the sofa and Elder Davis is laid on the countertop. Including Kevin, that makes seven.

“I don’t know,” says Elder Church, sitting up to lean on his elbows. “He’ll be fine. He was at the church today, he probably took shelter at Mafala’s or something.”

Kevin wishes he could be as unphased as the others. But he knows Connor, probably better than anyone, and he knows that Connor is a martyr and that Connor is absolutely not fine. The hole inside Kevin feels like it’s been ripped open and it’s filled with ice. He finds himself tying his shoes by the door before he realises he’s gotten up.

“Elder Price, what are you doing?”

Kevin doesn’t know. Kevin feels horribly nauseous. He opens the door.

“Heavenly Father - Elder Price, shut the door! Are you nuts?”

The rain hits Kevin before he even steps a foot out, and it pools on the doormat.

“Don’t be a hero, Kevin,” says Elder Michaels, at the same time that Elder Church says “Go get him, soldier.”

Kevin always liked Elder Church better, anyway. He shuts the door behind him with a slam and is blinded by sheets of rain before his eyes come into focus.

The floor squelches and he already can feel mud between his toes. It only takes a few moments of trying to walk before he breaks into a run, glad he knows the way from the hut to the village well enough to do it with his eyes closed.

“Elder McKinley?” Kevin yells when he gets close enough to see the vague outline of the half-finished church. He tries to keep the panic out of his voice but he’s not sure there’s much point. Kevin can’t hear anything other than the wind and the sound of rain hitting roofs. He walks as quickly as he can towards the church, hoping that Connor is there, because if Kevin has another breakdown while he’s alone in the storm, he’s not sure there’s any coming back from that. But what if Connor isn’t there? The rain came out of nowhere, he could have been anywhere when it hit. This isn’t the first time it’s stormed in Kitguli since they arrived; far from it, but Kevin knows that this time something is off. He can feel it in his gut and in the empty spaces in his chest. Something bad is going to happen if he doesn’t do something. It’s as obvious as two plus two.

“Elder McKinley?” he tries again, coming around the side of the building. “Connor?”

Kevin moves around the back, where the wall is still mostly low, and finds Connor stood inside, holding an armful of supplies.

“Elder Price?” he says. Connor’s hair is plastered to his forehead, and it’s much longer than Kevin realised it was.

“Hi,” says Kevin, feeling stupid now that he’s found Connor. What was he thinking? Connor is fine. Connor isn’t dying, the world isn’t ending, and they are both very, very wet. Connor’s shoes are half sunk into the mud, half sitting in a pool of water.

“What are you doing here?” he says over the roaring sound of the wind. Kevin feels horribly embarrassed. What is he doing here?

“You weren’t at home,” is all Kevin can think to say. Connor drops his armful of supplies and runs over to Kevin, and now Kevin can see his face and how his eyelashes twitch when they get hit by droplets. His eyes and his nose are red and his lip wobbles comically. He throws his arms around Kevin, and he becomes uncomfortably aware of just how sodden he is. He feels like he’s drowning and his clothes are dragging him down. There’s a clap of thunder. Kevin squeezes Connor as hard as he can.

“You really are one for dramatics,” says Connor, and then bursts into tears. Kevin cups the back of his head with his palm. “It’s _ruined_.”

Kevin looks up at the building, which was half finished when he last saw it properly. It’s around a third finished now. A beam has come down and most of the east wall has crumbled. Kevin winces.

“We can’t have a wedding in this!” Connor half-yells into his chest. He shifts so that the top of his head presses against his collarbone. “We have to fix it.”

“We will,” says Kevin. “But we can’t do it in this weather.”

Connor hums and is quiet for a moment. The sky flashes bright and a rumbling sound follows. They both jump.

“Thank you, Elder Price,” Connor says, and then lifts his head up. He doesn’t loosen his arms and it makes something warm pool in Kevin’s stomach. “You should have stayed inside.”

“You shouldn’t have stayed outside,” says Kevin, petulantly, and Connor smiles. It’s like the sunshine suddenly burst through the dark clouds. Kevin’s can feel his face burning.

“What are we going to do?” says Connor. “It’s a month of work gone, just because of the fucking weather!”

“I know,” says Kevin, and pulls Connor’s head forward so he can rest his cheek on his hairline. He doesn’t know what else to say. They’re both wet and miserable. “We should go home.”

“Why did you come find me?” says Connor. He tries to wriggle away from Kevin’s grip.

“You weren’t at the hut,” he says, dumbly. “I didn’t know where you were. And you’re going to get sick, you dumbass.”

“I can’t wait to see your bedside manner,” says Connor, sticking his tongue out slightly. They watch each other for a moment, and burst out laughing. The rain is coming down hard as ever and it’s painful when it hits Kevin’s back. He can’t stop smiling at Connor like an idiot.

He leads Connor back to the hut in silence, gripping his hand harder with every flash of lightning. Connor squeezes back.

He slows down when they approach the door and turns to Connor.

“Um,” he says. “I sort of, freaked out and stormed off?”

“Of course you did,” says Connor, and Kevin tries to glare at him but the rain glues his eyelashes together. “That’s okay,” he says and opens the door.

Kevin follows him in and is hit by the sensation of not being rained on. It makes him feel light, almost like he’s floating. He’s still holding Connor’s hand like he might lose him if he lets go, and he reluctantly drops it like a hot potato. He shakes himself like a dog, showering the doorway with droplets.

“Oh, you found him!” Elder Church waves at them from the floor, exactly where Kevin left him.

“Hooray,” says Elder Thomas, without much meaning. Kevin feels both relieved at the lack of excitement and indignant that they didn’t seem too worried about them at all.

“Where were you?” says Elder Church to Connor. Kevin watches them stare at each other for a little too long.

“Got lost,” says Connor. “Elder Price found me, now we’re here. Hooray indeed.”

He surveys the room, shaking his wet hair from his eyes. “Now, boys, are we setting up camp here tonight?”

“The windows rattle too much and it’s super spooky. We voted to stay here. That okay with you, boss?”

“Hang on,” says Elder Church. “Where did you get lost?”

“I don’t know, I was lost,” says Connor. “That is perfectly fine with me. Elder Price and I are going to go get out of these wet clothes and then it’s lights out.”

“I bet you are,” says Elder Church, with narrowed eyes. Elder Neeley snickers. Connor pulls a face at him and steps over various sleepy bodies, beckoning Kevin with him. The house is shaking and the rain sounds louder and heavier now that they’re in indoors.

When Kevin shuts the door, it’s like the rest of the world melts away with it, the way Connor looks at him.

“You lied,” Kevin says. Connor winces.

“I know,” he says.

“Mormon’s don’t lie.”

“Yeah,” says Connor. “But I did.”

Kevin looks at him, and Connor looks back. Kevin understands having breakdowns. He understands how embarrassed Connor feels. He understands, mostly, the horrible thrill of doing something so fundamentally wrong. Sleeping in, coffee, those things are easy. Lying is something else entirely. He stares at Connor in awe.

“That’s kind of amazing,” he tells him. Connor shakes his head. “You know what I mean.”

“Please don’t tell them,” Connor says. It’s more of a command than a question. Of course Kevin wouldn’t tell them. Kevin would probably jump off a bridge if Elder McKinley told him to.

“I promise,” Kevin says, and holds out his pinky finger. Connor smiles and latches it with his.

“Thank you,” Connor says. “It’s just – I’m still the district leader. I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

“What are you talking about?” Kevin says. “There is no district leader anymore.”

“I know that,” says Connor, looking at Kevin warily. “But you are seven nineteen year old boys, alone, in a third world country. We were brought up in cotton wool. If something goes wrong, who will everyone turn to?”

Kevin can see his point. He feels embarrassed that he is part of the problem. Connor’s fingers gripping his wrist as he washed the blood from Kevin’s hand. Connor stroking his hair when he got too drunk. Letting Kevin yell at him and say hurtful things and slam doors because that’s what Kevin needed to do.

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin.

“Oh, not you,” says Connor, waving his hand. “You’re a lost cause. You’d be my second in command, but everybody knows you’re no good in a crisis. Nobody knows that I’m no good in a crisis yet, and it has to stay that way. Understand?”

Second in command. Second in command! Kevin feels inordinately pleased with himself.

“But who do you turn to?”

Connor looks at him like he’s asked the most ridiculous question in the world.

“No one, you idiot,” he says. “I’m it.”

Kevin knows that’s his own fault. It’s Arnold’s fault, mostly, but it’s Kevin’s fault too. They don’t have the support of the mission president, they don’t have their parents, and they don’t even have God anymore.

“Turn to me, then,” Kevin says. “You don’t have to have the weight of the world on shoulders. There’s a life outside the Church, there’s a life outside of Uganda. You aren’t alone, or anything. I know you love theatrics, but you don’t have to stay in the middle of a storm trying to fix everything on your own.”

They look at each other for a long time.

“Okay,” Connor says. “I’ll think about it.”

He looks like a scared, drowned cat, and Kevin is overcome with the urge to hug him again. He doesn’t. This moment is quieter, and dry, and Kevin feels weird in the afterglow of all the drama.

“Go get changed,” Kevin tells him. “We should try and sleep. It’s been a long day.”

Kevin, still damp but wearing dry clothes, pads back to the main room, bravely only wearing socks, and finds half the Elders in various stages of sleep scattered about the room. Kevin sighs and lies down next to Arnold, who mumbles hello when Kevin prods him but shows no other signs of life. His brain is buzzing and the thumping of the rain above them is making his head hurt. He turns his blanket into a makeshift pillow when Connor turns the flickering light off and thumps over to lay somewhere on the other side of Arnold.

Kevin feels weird and sick, and he feels cold for the first time since he landed. His brain doesn’t seem to understand that everything is okay, that the danger has passed. He focuses on the sound of his own breathing, syncing it with Arnold’s, like Kevin’s been doing for months and months, since the problem started. It helps.

Arnold rolls over and gets up, mumbling that he has to pee. Kevin finds himself lying on the floor, face to face with Connor McKinley, because of course he does. It’s hard to see that far over in the dark, but he can see Connor staring at him for a long time, his eyes glinting when there’s a flash of light outside the window. Kevin gives a small smile, and Connor smiles back, slowly, after a moment. Arnold clambers back over and half lays on Kevin, and Kevin falls asleep thinking about thunder.

***

Afiya and Kohi’s wedding takes place on what feels like the hottest day in existence.

This wouldn’t be too bad, but this is the first time in a very long time that any of them have bothered to wear their official missionary uniforms. Kevin has no idea how many of them would have lasted this long if they hadn’t thrown in the undergarments and fully-buttoned up shirts. His tie feels too tight around his neck. He keeps playing with it, but that’s making it worse.

“Stop it,” says Elder McKinley, barely breaking a sweat, crinkling his nose up at him. “You don’t have to wear it for long.”

Kevin doesn’t stop playing with it. His neck is feeling raw from the sweat and fabric, and friction where he pulls it. It hurts.

“Elder Price,” Connor says, “Leave it alone.”

“I don’t like it,” Kevin hisses. He feels panicked and sick. He’s very aware of how many people are around him, can see him, and he wants to run away but he doesn’t want to cause a scene. “I don’t like wearing it.”

“You can take it off whenever you want, you know,” says Connor. “You don’t have to wear it ever again if you don’t want to.”

Kevin has two fingers from both hands hooked under the tie.

“Connor,” he pants, “I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, for Christ’s – okay, come on, let’s get out of here.”

Connor leads him out of the crowd by hand while Kevin’s head spins. As soon as they turn a corner, Kevin doubles over and pukes in a bush.

“That’s so gross,” says Connor, with a sigh. He rubs his back, soothingly. “Feel better?”

Kevin shakes his head, afraid to open his mouth in case he’s sick again. He still can’t breathe, but in a different, heavier, more painful way. Connor plays with his tie, and Kevin can’t stop staring at his fingers.

“Let’s get this off, shall we?”

Connor moves his hand towards the knot of the tie, towards Kevin’s neck, and Kevin pushes him away with more fight than he meant to.

“Don’t touch me,” says Kevin, chest still heaving, hands still at his neck.

“You don’t mean that,” says Connor, coming closer, and Kevin flinches. “Hey, hey, Kevin, it’s only me.”

Kevin’s brain is vibrating and he can’t really see properly. His chest hurts. He thinks if he opens his mouth he might die.

“It’s only me,” Connor says again. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m the one who patches you up, remember?”

And Kevin does remember. He remembers how it felt, that first time that Connor touched him, how his fingers gripped his wrist, and fortunately he’s too spaced out to analyse that.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and nods at Connor. Connor steps forward, and places his fingers on the knot, on the skin of Kevin’s neck, and Kevin needs Connor to get it off him _right now_ or –

“There we go,” says Connor, brightly, and undoes Kevin’s top two buttons for good measure. The relief that Kevin feels is so immediate that Kevin feels his embarrassment twice as hard.

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin, voice a little raspy, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” says Connor, shrugging, dropping Kevin’s tie to the floor. Kevin regains his composure for a few moments before he notices what Connor is doing. Connor is removing his own tie, too.

“I didn’t want you to see that,” says Kevin.

“Well you wouldn’t have gotten the tie off yourself, would you? Silly,” says Connor, and he pinches Kevin’s cheek. It makes Kevin feel better.

Connor leans in and wraps his arms around him. Kevin can feel his shoulders sag down, his insides uncurl and he hooks his chin over Connor’s shoulder.

“You’re okay,” says Connor. And then he leans inwards, and presses his mouth against the shell of his ear, and says, “Fuck the ties.”

The sensation surprises Kevin into laughing. Then Kevin snorts, and he sounds all wet and snotty, which is much more mortifying when your brain is connected to your body.

“Thank you,” says Kevin, as Connor pulls away. “You’re a good friend.”

Connor gives him a strange look, but takes his hand anyway. “Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

The further away they get from the Church and the closer they are to the river, Kevin starts to cool down and the air feels thinner. Connor has looped his arm through Kevin’s.

“It was getting too hot in there anyway,” says Connor. “Besides, we can still go drink them under the table later. Miss all the awkward small talk and arrive straight for the fun stuff.”

“The others will talk,” says Kevin, as they approach the small enclosure that Connor has taken him to before.

“So let them talk,” says Connor, and pulls Kevin down with him to flop on the grass.

“They’ll think I murdered you. Everyone thinks we hate each other.”

“Do they?” says Connor, looking mildly surprised. “You ran into a storm after me.”

“Well, they think you hate me. They know I’m -” Kevin manages to shut his mouth, for once.

“They know you’re what?” says Connor. There’s a gleeful look in his eyes.

“Nothing,” says Kevin. “I don’t know,” which isn’t a lie.

“Well,” says Connor. “I don’t know why they would think I hate you.”

“Of course they do,” says Kevin. “People never see us like – this.”

“What do you mean, this?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Kevin rolls his eyes. He gestures down towards their entangled legs, at Connor’s hands straightening Kevin’s collar, their faces far too close.

“Well, that’s their problem, not ours,” says Connor. Connor touches Kevin’s chin and Kevin’s whole body shuts down. Kevin watches Connor watch his own hand.

“I don’t hate you,” says Kevin, and Connor snorts.

“Obviously,” he says, and pats his hair, and Kevin thinks he feels his fingers run through it slightly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nope,” says Kevin, shaking his head. “This is nice. This is fine.”

Kevin feels bad on missing out on the ceremony. They both looked lovely, and everybody was so happy. Nobody minded that the Church wasn’t finished; the sun was shining and the whole village turned up.

“You look better without it, I think,” says Connor, his wandering hand now on Kevin’s chest. “You look good.”

“Um,” says Kevin, eloquently.

“You are very handsome, Elder Price,” and Kevin feels a new kind of thrill run up and down his body. Connor’s face is so close and his mouth is _right there,_ he can feel hot breath on his lips, and –

“I still have vomit in my mouth,” Kevin blurts, and Connor’s eyes come back into focus.

“Lovely,” says Connor, pulling a face. He makes eye contact in a way that makes Kevin feel uncomfortable. “You know, they say you shouldn’t meet your idols.”

“Because you’ll see them puke?”

“Because then you’ll find out that they’re as insufferable as you are.”

Kevin flicks Connor’s forehead. “Buzz off. Did you have pictures of me above your bed?”

“Don’t even start,” says Connor, sticking his tongue out. “Don’t you know me at all? My wall was covered in pictures of girls. I kept the photo of you under my pillow.”

Kevin laughs. “I knew a girl who kept a photo of me under her mattress.”

“That hussy,” says Connor. “Claws off.”

“We were ten.”

“Heathen,” says Connor, and ruffles Kevin’s hair from behind. “How many people asked you to prom?”

“Ugh,” says Kevin. “Don’t remind me. How many people asked you?”

Connor narrows his eyes. “None, you idiot. Besides, I didn’t go to prom.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Kevin shrugs. “I hated school.”

“Really?” says Connor. “I would not have guessed.”

“I’m less of a stereotype than people think I am, you know,” says Kevin, crinkling his nose.

“You use teeth whitening strips!”

“Point taken,” says Kevin. “But you’re less of a stereotype than people think you are too.”

Connor tenses. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, don’t,” says Kevin. “I don’t want to fight right now. I’m tired and my head hurts.”

“That’s so not how this works,” says Connor, cocking his head to the side. “But okay, I’ll let this one slide. You owe me one fight.”

“Duly noted,” says Kevin, with a weak imitation of a salute.

Kevin closes his eyes for a while until the throbbing in his head turns into more of a pleasant buzz.

“You look like shit,” says Connor, and Kevin cracks one eye open to look at him. “I’m just saying.”

“I thought I was handsome?” says Kevin, with an exaggerated pout. Connor turns pink.

“I said no such thing,” says Connor. Kevin decides not to press it.

“We should head back, before they send out a search party for you.”

“They only think you’re a bit pompous, you know.”

“Oh come on,” says Kevin. “You’re the most popular girl at school.”

“Shows how much you know,” Connor snorts. “We can stay here longer, you know, if you don’t want to face people right now.”

“No, we should go. It’s a special day, we’re missing out on it.”

“In a rush to get me drunk, Elder Price?” says Connor, pulling Kevin up with him. It’s Kevin’s turn to go pink.

“You are ridiculous,” says Kevin as they walk back. “You’ll happily get so drunk you wrangle people into a conga line, but you won’t wake up after six thirty a.m. and still insist on cleaning the hut for exactly an hour on Saturdays.”

“Old habits die hard,” says Connor, and he sounds weird, and a little sad. “It’s hard to, you know, readjust. Like, you spend your whole life thinking the universe is a certain way and you exist in one big Mormon shaped reality, and then you realise that the universe is so different and the Mormon shaped reality is so small compared to what’s out there, and it’s, well. It’s a little overwhelming.”

Kevin knows exactly what he means. He pushes his shoulder against Connor’s.

“Come on, let’s go celebrate some good Christian morals and enjoy the holy matrimony of a man and woman. Should cheer you up.”

“That sounds like the last thing I’d want to celebrate right now.”

Connor is a dirty liar, because Connor has a great time. Kevin, who for the first time isn’t the least sober person at the party, is delighted to find that Connor is an excellent drunk. He is a loud drunk. He is a very touchy-feely drunk, but Kevin finds that he doesn’t mind. Kevin finds that he kind of likes it.

Well, he doesn’t like it when Connor does it to other people, obviously. But when he catches Kevin’s eye, he’s looking at Kevin like he’s the only person in the room. It’s Kevin that Connor saunters over to, to bother about this or that, to help him with something. It’s Kevin that Connor keeps finding his way back to. Kevin is far past being ashamed of liking the attention. Kevin doesn’t think he’ll ever break out of the habit of being pleased when he’s been chosen.

And that’s what it must be, really, Kevin thinks, watching Connor dance and stuff his face with buffet food and wobble around the table to tell Nabulungi something. Her eyes flicker over to Kevin and he waves an awkward hello. Connor acts like Kevin is special. Connor doesn’t fight with anyone else, he doesn’t hover around to say goodnight to anyone else, nobody else knows about the little bank by the river. He supposes he could be wrong, because it’s not like the others know about what happens when he and Connor are alone. Not that anything _happens_. Kevin doesn’t know what it is, really, that they are. And Connor could easily be whatever-they-are with somebody else – it’s not like Kevin knows where Connor is every minute of the day.

Kevin wanders over to Elder Church and Elder Thomas, who thankfully don’t say anything about his lack of tie or wonder where he disappeared to for the last few hours. Elder Church gives him a knowing look and nudges him with his elbow, pointing his head towards Connor as if he’s asking a question. Kevin gives him a withering look before he realises that Elder Church is making some sort of in-joke between them. He remembers the engagement party, when Elder Church was there, listening to Kevin’s ramblings. He had called himself Kevin’s friend. Maybe he was right. Kevin had confided in Elder Church, and maybe that made Elder Church feel special, and maybe Elder Church likes to feel chosen, too. Maybe that’s not just a Kevin thing. And Kevin likes Elder Church – he’s incredibly sarcastic and dry witted, whilst being stoic and calm. The heat never seems to bother him. Kevin could see himself being his friend, so he nods back at Elder Church in answer to a question that Kevin thinks he understands. Elder Church smiles and nods back, seemingly satisfied, and Kevin adds Elder Church to his mental list of People Who Know Too Much.

“You’re too perceptive,” Kevin tells him.

“What?” asks Elder Thomas, looking between them curiously, “What are you talking about?”

“None of your business,” says Elder Church, patting Elder Thomas on the head. “Why don’t you go and talk to that girl you like? It’s the perfect time. Everyone is dressed up real nice and weddings are so romantic, all that love in the air. You could at least give it a shot.” Kevin shifts uncomfortably as Elder Church makes meaningful eye contact with him. Elder Thomas gapes at them both with his mouth hanging open. “Close your mouth, you’ll swallow flies.”

Elder Thomas turns to Kevin. “Who do you -?”

“Which girl do you like?” asks Kevin quickly. “Not that you have to tell me, I mean.”

“No, no, it’s okay, it’s not like it’s a secret,” says Elder Thomas with a sigh. “Afiya’s younger sister. Look, she’s over there. Sister Hatimbi is taking pictures of them.”

Kevin looks over at them. Both Afiya and her sister, Ife, have kids who go to Sunday School. Kevin is pleasantly surprised to find out that having a son out of wedlock hasn’t had Elder Thomas running for the hills. Ife is beautiful, that’s for sure. He’d never really noticed before.

“You should go talk to her,” says Kevin. “Ife is lovely, and much less mean than her sister.”

“You know her?” says Elder Thomas, looking like he’d just tripped over his feet standing still. “Oh, no. How can I compete with you? Look at yourself!”

Kevin looks down and sees a shirt and trousers and dusty arms. It takes him a puzzled minute to put two and two together.

“Oh! Yes, I see what you mean,” says Kevin, thinking carefully. Elder Thomas gives him a hurt look. “No, _no_ , sorry, I just– I always wanted to be the best at everything, but it’s turned out that the only thing I excel at is putting my foot in my mouth.”

Elder Thomas and Elder Church both laugh, and Kevin thinks they might be laughing with him, and not at him.

“Okay, so you admit you’re good looking. I would call you egotistical but you can’t argue with facts.”

Kevin wishes Arnold would barge in and distract everyone from Kevin’s visible discomfort like he usually does, but he’s nowhere to be found. Kevin would bet a week’s coffee supply that he’s passed out under a tree trunk somewhere, complete with a cartoonish snot bubble.

“Do you like her too?” asks Elder Thomas. The question startles Kevin and makes his stomach lurch. “Because if you do, I’ll back off. Two friends shouldn’t go for the same girl, it only ends in disaster and tears.”

“Oh, um. Well, Elder Thomas,” says Kevin, the tips of his ears burning. How is he supposed to answer _that_ question? He’s been knocked back by both Elder Thomas’ admission that not only are they _friends_ , and Elder Thomas’ willingness to let Kevin have the girl they both like. Not that Kevin likes her. Or any girl, really. But how is he supposed to tell Elder Thomas that come to think of it, he’s never liked a girl, but thank you very much for the opportunity?

“He doesn’t like Ife, you buffoon,” says Elder Church, lightly smacking him round the back of the head. Kevin musters up the most grateful expression he can imagine. “Go talk to her, you oblivious idiot.”

“Ife’s son comes to Sunday School,” Kevin explains. “I can talk you up, you know, mention how kind and handsome you are.”

“Isn’t she going to think it’s a bit weird, you telling her how you think another man is handsome?”

“Probably not,” Kevin shrugs and pretends not to notice Elder Church kicking Elder Thomas. “But you’re right, she can see that for herself. Okay, here’s the thing. Ife’s ex was a real jerk, a big tough guy who was a bit, you know. A lot older than her, she dated him too young, that kind of thing. So now she wants someone quieter, and gentle, and kind, et cetera. I think you’ve got a pretty good shot.”

“You know everything,” says Elder Thomas in awe. He turns to Elder Church, “he knows everything. How does he know everything?”

“Didn’t your mom seem to know everything about everyone else’s parents when you were a kid? My mother called it school gate gossip. People talk, when you actually listen.”

“Haven’t you grown!” says Elder Church, clapping him on the shoulder. Kevin tries not to be annoyed.

“Besides, I think women like to talk to men that aren’t threatening or want to, _you know_ , with them.”

“You don’t?” says Elder Thomas. Kevin wishes he could keep his big mouth shut for once.

“Um,” is all Kevin can think to say. He remembers why he never really made friends with people before Uganda.

“Don’t be nosy,” says Elder Church. “And go talk to the poor girl. If you keep staring at her, that’s probably going to freak her out.”

“But we’ve barely spoken two words! She doesn’t even know who I am.”

“I’ll introduce you,” Kevin offers without thinking, but the look on Elder Thomas’ face makes his awkwardness worth it. “Come on, then.”

The three of them trudge oddly across the way. Kevin kisses Afiya and Ife on the cheek and tells them how beautiful they look. Kevin has been to so many weddings, the niceties are more like going through the motions, but Kevin finds he means the words more than usual this time. It might be Uganda, or the half built church, or the fact he vomited a few hours ago and is feeling pretty emotional. He introduces Elder Thomas to Ife, turns around and offers to dance with Afiya. She looks between her sister and Elder Thomas and nods.

“No,” she tells Kevin. “You are a terrible dancer. I am going to go and find my husband.”

Kevin tries not to look affronted. He turns to say something to Elder Church and suddenly finds that he’s alone. His mood turns just like that. He clenches and unclenches his hands, as if five minutes ago he wasn’t happy, annoyed that he was left alone so suddenly and annoyed at himself for feeling lonely when there are dozens of people here. He could talk to any one of them, but he’s tired and exhausted and his mouth still tastes gross. He goes to play with his tie before he remembers that it’s not there.

Connor finds him, because of course it’s Connor, and they’re drawn to each other likes moths to light.

“I have been looking everywhere for you,” says Connor, pouting. Kevin looks around. He’s stood in plain sight in a large, open space. He cocks his head at Connor. “You were talking to people who aren’t me or Arnold.”

“I was,” says Kevin.

“How did that go?”

“Well, I think. We’ll have to wait and see if Elder Thomas comes home tonight or not.”

Connor slaps him on the arm, and ignores Kevin’s annoyed ow. “You set him up? With who?”

“Ife,” says Kevin. “Don’t look at me, he started it.”

“We can’t all just start dating people willy-nilly,” says Connor. “And I didn’t realise you were – into that sort of stuff.”

“I could be,” says Kevin, feeling flustered. Connor is making assumptions about Kevin, again. “And why not? Dating isn’t forbidden or anything. Anyway, we make our own rules now. And Arnold definitely has some things he’d like to say about dating, I imagine.”

“And what would you like to say about dating?”

“What are you talking about?” says Kevin. Connor hiccups. “Elder Thomas had a crush, I knew her, I introduced them, that was it. I was just trying to be nice. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” says Connor emphatically. “You can do whatever you like. It’s none of my business.”

“You’ve had a lot to drink,” says Kevin, carefully. “I don’t think you’re following what I’m saying.”

“You threw up on me earlier,” says Connor. Kevin did no such thing. He threw up into a bush, it didn’t even go on his shoes. “And I looked after you and then you do _this_.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying right now. Do you?”

“Not really,” says Connor. “But I know that I’m mad at you.”

“Why? You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m always mad at you,” says Connor, putting his hand on Kevin’s chest again, like he did earlier. He wonders if Connor can feel his heart thumping. “You should apologise.”

“I didn’t do anything,” says Kevin. “I helped out a friend. That’s all.”

“Since when did you have friends,” says Connor, and Kevin steps back.

“Okay,” says Kevin. “You’re drunk, and I can’t talk to you like this. You’re trying to pick a fight with me over nothing. Unless you tell me what your damage is, I’m leaving.”

“No, don’t go,” says Connor, grabbing Kevin’s hand as he turns away. “You always walk away.”

“And you always follow,” Kevin counters.

“Right,” Connor snorts. “Some district leader I am.”

Kevin considers him carefully. Connor is both mystifying and an idiot.

“I told you, it’s not like that means anything anymore,” he says. “You can just be Connor.”

“Like how you’re just Kevin?”

“Exactly like that. You don’t have to be District Nine Leader Elder McKinley. I don’t have to be Mormon Poster Boy Elder Price. We can just be – Connor and Kevin. You’re Connor, I’m Kevin, and here we are at a friend’s wedding having a good time. Nothing more. Nothing less. We don’t have to drag our Latter Day baggage everywhere we go.”

Connor looks at him for a long, long time before sticking his hand out between them.

“Hello, I’m Connor.”

Kevin takes his hand and shakes it with both of his.

“Nice to meet you, Connor,” says Kevin. “Are you mad at Kevin or Elder Price right now?”

“Elder Price, I think.”

“That’s good,” says Kevin. “Because Elder Price is long gone. You won’t have to worry about that guy much anymore.”

Connor’s smile is the widest he’s ever seen. One minute he’s full of sharp needles, the next he’s full of sunshine.

“I don’t want Elder Price to date anyone,” says Connor. He looks annoyed at himself, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. He looks at Kevin imploringly.

“Okay,” says Kevin. “I’ll let him know.”

“Really?”

“Really,” says Kevin.

Kevin looks into Connor’s stupid blue eyes as if they’ll say something that his mouth won’t. They don’t tell him anything, other than that they’re still really blue and still really nice to look at. Neither of those things help him understand what on Earth is going through Connor’s head today. The heat probably got to him, too. And maybe it makes him feel sad, you know, being at a wedding.

He slings his arm around Connor’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ve just had a chat with Elder Price and he’s totally down for not dating anyone.”

“No kissing anyone either,” says Connor, nodding to himself, before leaning in to Kevin’s chest.

“Yeah,” says Kevin, feeling weird. “You either.”

The rest of the day goes off without a hitch. He does find Arnold semi-passed out on the floor later, complete with a half-dressed Nabulungi. Kevin pulls a face at them both and tells Arnold he’s heading back. He walks back to the hut with Connor on one side of him, pulling his arm and trying to point out everything he sees to him, and has Elder Church on the other side, looking forward, ignoring them.

“You’re both idiots,” Elder Church says, and Kevin is glad that Connor didn’t hear him.

***

Arnold corners him one day, Nabulungi in tow, on his way back from helping the others rebuild the church. It’s about three quarters done now. Kevin doesn’t find it as rewarding as teaching, but it’s still satisfying to watch it build up brick by brick. And besides, he is not going to complain about watching Connor at work. He rarely has the opportunity to do so, which is a shame because he’s definitely in his element. Since the Arnold Incident, Kevin has hated being told what to do, but he finds he doesn’t mind it when it’s Connor barking orders. His shirt is unbuttoned all the way down (still with an undershirt, of course) and his hair is sticking to his forehead with sweat. Kevin can see all of the freckles on Connor’s collarbones. It’s very distracting. Connor had glared at him and told him to stop staring on more than one occasion, but Kevin couldn’t stop stealing glances from the corner of his eye. He’s long since accepted that he has an unhealthy obsession with Connor McKinley, and it’s simply too hot to worry about it.

Nabulungi grabs a fistful of Kevin’s shirt from behind and yoinks him backwards into the shade of Nabulungi’s front porch. Kevin makes a startled noise and almost has a heart attack.

“Jesus Christ,” says Kevin, rubbing his neck where his collar had winded him. “What do you two want?”

“We need to talk,” says Arnold, looking uncharacteristically serious. Kevin’s heart stops.

“Oh,” says Kevin. “Has something happened? Are you okay?”

Arnold shakes his head. “I’m fine. It’s you that has a problem. A big, Elder McKinley shaped problem.”

“We’re just worried about you,” says Nabulungi.

Kevin sighs. This conversation has been a long time coming, he supposes. He didn’t know how long they could go without mentioning that Kevin is one slip away from stalking Connor, but he had hoped it would at least take them past the two year mark and have it in America where he doesn’t have to share a very small hut with these people.

“Don’t say you don’t know what we’re talking about,” Nabulungi says when Kevin opens his mouth. “We don’t believe you. Nobody is this oblivious.”

“I don’t have a problem,” says Kevin, turning pink. “Everything is fine.”

“Everything is so not fine,” says Arnold. “I miss you.”

Kevin has the humility to feel bad, for a moment, before he realises that he spends just as much time with Connor as Arnold does with Nabulungi. Not that he and Connor are, you know.

“I’m allowed to have other friends,” says Kevin. “You’re still the most important person in my life.”

And I know I’m not yours, Kevin’s stupid brain adds unhelpfully. It’s a thought that he’s never had consciously but now he has words for it he realises it’s been bothering him for a while. Kevin doesn’t like spending the night alone while Arnold is out, so if he stays up late to talk to Connor, what does it matter? He’d do that with anyone, it’s just that it’s Connor that’s always up late too. When they’re all out and Arnold and Nabulungi make him the most painfully obvious third wheel in the world, who can blame him for wandering off to find Connor?

Kevin has a horrible realisation that he might be using Connor. Or at least, that Connor might think he’s using him.

“Of course you’re allowed to have other friends,” says Arnold. “We are both just concerned that um. You seem to have fixated on him a little?”

“I have not,” says Kevin, even though he definitely has.

“Stop fighting us,” says Nabulungi. “We know more than you think we do.”

“You don’t know anything,” says Kevin, bristled. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I know _you,_ ” says Arnold.

“You don’t know us!” Kevin yell-whispers. “I don’t ask what you two get up when you’re alone. It’s none of your business.”

“Yes,” says Nabulungi. “But we are in a relationship. You two are not.”

Kevin knows by her tone and by the way Arnold looks at Kevin what they’re implying.

“What part of I don’t want to talk about it don’t you understand?”

Arnold doesn’t look angry, or annoyed, or frustrated, or any of the million things that Kevin has gotten used to, arguing with Connor. He just looks at Kevin with sad eyes that make Kevin feel horribly hot and uncomfortable.

“I think,” says Arnold, “That you might be leading him on a little.”

Kevin stares at him. He knows what he’s supposed to say, but Mormon’s don’t lie and old habits die hard.

“Fuck off,” is what he says instead.

“If you care about him,” Arnold says, “then you need to back off.”

“Connor is my friend.”

“Is he?” Arnold says, and Kevin wishes he were simply in a bad dream that he could wake up from and pretend never happened. “Because we’re friends, and we don’t argue all the time.”

“We’re arguing right now,” says Kevin. “And me and Connor haven’t fought in a long time. You need to stick your nose into somebody else’s business, not mine.”

“That’s what best friends do,” says Arnold. “Best friends are supposed to know what’s up, like, by instinct. Your business is my business, whether you like it or not.”

Kevin thinks about the two of them, laid side by side on the grass, dancing together while Kevin stumbles over his two left feet, Connor’s hand on his wrist in the kitchen, how Connor leant into him, their faces so close, and –

“Trust me,” says Kevin. “It’s none of your business.”

“Okay,” says Arnold, splaying both palms upwards. “All I’m saying is, you should think about it.”

Kevin doesn’t think Arnold understands. Kevin thinks about it all the time.

“Okay,” says Kevin.

Nabulungi gives him a shrewd look.

“Elder Price,” she says. “You’re not leading him on at all, are you?”

Kevin doesn’t say anything. There’s no answer that Kevin can think of.

He walks back to the hut feeling sullen and a little sad. He knows he’s left Arnold and Nabulungi with plenty to gossip about behind his back. What do they know, anyway. They’re so wrapped up in their Arnold-and-Nabulungi lovesick bubble to pay any attention to anything else. They’re all, ‘we have a great relationship so suddenly we’re the world experts’. Whatever.

He walks in to find Connor laid on the couch with his feet on one arm and his head resting against the other. He smiles up at Kevin and Kevin smiles back on instinct. Connor sits up and swivels, then pats the couch next to him.

“Hello,” Connor says when Kevin flops down and the springs make an alarming noise.

“Hi,” says Kevin. He rests his cheek against Connor’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” says Connor. He sounds tired. “You?”

“Eh,” Kevin says. He places one hand on Connor’s knee. He knows he should say something, anything, but he doesn’t, because Connor is rubbing his cheek on Kevin’s head like a cat and he’s so soft and solid next to him. “I’m perfect.”

“Yes, you are,” says Connor, and Kevin closes his eyes.

Kevin has spent so long trying not to be selfish and he’s tired. He thinks the universe should let him have this one, at least. Screw Arnold, anyway.

***

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before.”

They are laid side by side on the bank, and Kevin is absolutely not thinking about safari ants crawling under his skin and eating him from the inside. Their arms are touching and the moon is big and bright. It’s nice.

Apart from the safari ants. Of which there aren’t any. Right.

Kevin thinks about it for a while. He’s coming up blank. The question reminds him of those icebreakers you would have to do on the first day of class or the training centre and you can’t think of a single interesting thing about you.

“I fell out of a tree and broke my wrist when I was nine.”

Connor squints at him, then laughs, then stops laughing at the look on Kevin’s face when he heaves himself up with a sigh and props himself up with his elbow.

“I’m more of an open book kind of guy. I’ve never really been shy about disclosing information about myself.”

Connor looks at him from below, still flat on his back on the grass.

“Now we both know that’s not true,” Connor says softly. “Don’t we?”

Kevin is definitely not thinking about safari ants _or_ how Connor’s freckles look in the half dark moonlight when he answers, honestly, “I don’t know.”

Connor is quiet for a while and Kevin spends the time examining Connor’s face. He’s kind of funny looking, really. He has a lot of freckles on odd patches of skin and a long nose that sits awkwardly in the centre, looking out of place. He resists the urge to take his thumb and smooth the crease between his eyebrows. He cards his hand through his hair instead, smiling at the way Connor stretches into the touch.

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before.” 

“Mm,” says Connor, pushing his head up further into Kevin’s hand.

“No, no,” Kevin slowly removes his hand from Connor’s hair. He’s made it curl at the ends where his fingers have been twisting it. “I’m serious.”

“Do I have to?” asks Connor. He looks right at him. Kevin shifts, self-conscious of how the expression on his face would hold up to scrutiny.

“No,” says Kevin. “But you started it.”

“Okay,” says Connor, but he doesn’t move, and neither does Kevin, scared he’ll frighten Connor away if he makes any sudden movements. He’s worried he’s ruined the moment. Connor still hasn’t looked away, and Kevin has never before in his life backed down from a challenge.

Connor takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m gay.” Then he laughs. “Elder Price, I really am.”

Kevin flops back down next to him. He’s not entirely sure he likes the sound that Connor is making. He reaches out to Connor’s hand and is surprised to find that it’s clammy when he closes it around his.

“Yeah,” says Kevin, “you got me beat.” He thinks about how someone should kiss away Connor’s hurt. He remembers Suzy from fifth grade and hopes she’s happy.

“Oh, God,” says Connor. His voice sounds watery. Kevin squeezes his hand.

“It’s okay,” says Kevin, putting his foot in his mouth. “It doesn’t matter.”

Connor makes a derisive noise. “Of course it matters.”

“Well,” says Kevin. “That’s not what I meant.”

Connor rubs his thumb over the back of Kevin’s hand. It makes his heart swell.

“It’s so _unfair,_ ” he says. “I worked so hard. My parents wasted so much money on therapy. I even had a girlfriend, you know, once. I dated her for a whole year. We broke up because I was ‘emotionally unavailable’. The only reason I dated her was so boys would stop making such a fuss in the locker room. It was a terrible thing I did. I prayed every day and night that Heavenly Father would cure me. What was the point? I’m still - you know.”

Kevin, for possibly the first time since he got here, knows exactly what he needs to say.

“When I was younger, I wasn’t a very good Mormon.”

Connor turns to look at him. Kevin can feel his eyes on his cheek.

“I broke rules all the time because I didn’t know that they were rules in the first place. I got restless in Church, forgot lines to prayers, that kind of thing. My parents hated me for it. I was an embarrassment. So I become the best Mormon I could think of. Really threw myself into it. Learned whole verses by heart. I didn’t talk to anyone outside of the Church, I never stepped a toe out of line. The name Kevin Price became unanimous with what good Mormon boys should be. And then I get to Uganda, and within three days I’ve already broken rules. It took a matter of weeks before I was drinking coffee every day and growing my hair out, I started cursing, I stopped saying grace.”

Connor still hasn’t let go of his hand. Kevin turns to look him in the eyes, cheek flat on the grass.

“I was always a terrible Mormon, I think. I just hid it really well. I tried so hard for nothing, too. But I think it’s better this way. I tried what I was supposed to do, and it didn’t work for me. So now I’m just Kevin.”

“And I’m just Connor.”

“Right,” says Kevin, and smiles.

“Thank you,” Connor says. Kevin looks back up at the moon. There’s no light pollution in Kitguli, and it always surprises Kevin how even the sky looks so different here. There are a hundred things that Connor might be thanking him for, and he doesn’t feel proud of any of them. Connor looks so sad, and Kevin thinks: I did that. If Kevin had never come to Uganda, maybe Elder McKinley would have lived the life that he worked for.

It’s gone two in the morning when Kevin gets back to his room. Arnold is sat cross-legged on his bed waiting for him. His eyebrow is cocked in disapproval but the gleeful glint in his eye gives him away.

“Do you take all the boys out for secret late night stargazing sessions, Elder Price? Or just cute redheads?”

“Fuck off, Arnold,” Kevin smiles sweetly, and Arnold snickers himself back to sleep.

***

It’s Christmas, and they don’t have mass. They barely even talk about Jesus. Instead, they are all together, the villagers and the missionaries, some on the floor and some on stools, listening to Arnold try to explain Santa Claus.

Kevin thinks of his sisters, and his mother, and all of their cousins and Christmas trees and turkeys and baubles. He thinks about stockings and hot chocolate. His daydreams are indulgent and unsatisfying, but that doesn’t stop him from drifting off to the sound of Arnold’s voice and picturing what his family are doing, right now, without him. They will have sent their annual Christmas card with a photo that doesn’t include him this year.

“Are you missing home?” Kevin startles slightly at the sound of Connor’s whispered voice in his ear. It tickles the small hairs on his neck.

“No,” says Kevin carefully. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Me either,” says Connor, and offers him a weak smile. Kevin stares at him, and then stares at him some more, and Connor doesn’t look away until there’s a polite cough from Kevin’s right and sees that Elder Church is giving them an odd look. He turns his attention back to Arnold but Kevin finds that his eyes are glued to Connor’s freckles and the way his eyes twinkle at Arnold’s haphazard way of describing the Grinch’s teeny tiny heart, the dirty collar of his t-shirt and the skin of his neck. Connor shifts his hand slightly so that their pinky fingers are touching on the ground.

Kevin is in such a good mood for the rest of the day that he somehow ends up leading all of the children in a rousing chorus of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and then flusters his way through describing what a reindeer actually is, and then Mushiga asks, innocently, if Rudolph’s nose is as red as Elder McKinley’s, and it takes a while for Kevin to stop laughing.

He starts singing Frosty the Snowman before stopping halfway through as the kids lose interest and he can’t really describe what snow is, anyway, because even he has forgotten what it feels like to be cold. He sings Jingle Bells with Kamali sprawled over his back and her pudgy little hands grasping his hair as she says “Tena! Tena!” which they have all quickly learned means _again_ as it has become painfully clear that it’s Kamali’s favourite, and only, word at the minute.

When he stops singing, Kamali (who _used_ to be his favourite student at Sunday School) yanks his hair so hard that Kevin’s eyes start to water. Nabulungi lifts her off Kevin’s shoulders, whispering things in Swahili that Kevin will probably never understand. She takes her over to Arnold and Kevin watches them, their knees pressed together and Nabulungi’s arm stretched over his back, and feels an empty feeling somewhere in his gut. One of the smaller children reaches up and gives Arnold a smacking kiss on the cheek and when they laugh Kevin has a sudden rush of emotion so strong that it moves him physically, finding himself walking away from the scene and towards where he knows Connor will be.

He is _happy,_ he thinks. He thinks of board game nights and the taste of strawberry frosted Poptarts and lazily fanning each other with their abandoned copies of the Book of Mormon. There’s rivers and animals and laughter and so much love here, so much wide open space and eager arms and hearts and a camaraderie that makes the community of temple seem artificial and fragile. He isn’t afraid anymore, all the time, of death and for his soul. He’s healing. His fingers find the familiar old scars on his arm and he resists the inherent urge to tuck his shirt in, and smooth the sweaty, matted locks of his hair back into their proper place.

He is happy, in a way that makes him realise that he wasn’t really ever happy before now, but this is the root of the problem. He is happy but he could be happier. He feels lightheaded and greedy with the need to fill this new, empty ache in his body.

His feet take him to the spot on the bank by the river that has become his favourite spot, because it has the best views and the softest patch of grass and feels the most private, hidden away beyond some trees. He doesn’t think anyone else knows about it apart from him and Connor. He hasn’t even told Arnold.

He finds Connor sprawled on the grass, shirt riding up somewhat obscenely (Kevin doesn’t look, only he _does,_ but only because the sight is so bizarre and out of place on a Mission and such a small rebellion that Kevin marvels at its simplicity) and Kevin would have thought he was asleep if he hadn’t mumbled “Hello, Elder” as Kevin approached. He stretches languidly with a yawn and opens his eyes to watch Kevin sit down next him.

“Hello,” Kevin agrees. Then he says, “Merry Christmas, Elder McKinley.”

Connor’s wide smile beams like the sun. “Merry Christmas, Kevin.”

They sit quietly side by side as Kevin idly toys with flowers in his hands, trying to make necklaces like the kids taught him a few days ago. He’s not doing a particularly good job of it, and Kevin flushes as he accidentally rips the stem of his third flower.

“Here, let me,” says Connor, taking the flowers from Kevin’s hands, lingering in the touch a brief moment too long to be considered anything but over friendly. Connor works the flowers together with speed and grace, and Kevin watches his hands work dumbly. Connor has a habit of making Kevin feel clumsy. He places the finished necklace around Kevin’s neck with a smile.

“There we go,” says Connor. “Consider that your Christmas present. The gift of humility.” Kevin cocks his head to the side and pouts, mostly on purpose. “I can’t believe you just let me finish that for you without a word. How far you’ve come, Elder.”

“You too,” says Kevin, and he means it. Connor’s shoulders are relaxed and his eyes shine. There are more freckles on his face than ever. He wonders if he should ask the question that’s plaguing him, and thinks probably not, but then he does it anyway. “Are you happy?”

Connor looks at him thoughtfully. Kevin marvels, not for the first time, that Elder McKinley thinks that Kevin is worthy of his undivided attention. Kevin commands the room, and always has; not of all his pride has been unfounded, and he knows how he looks, and the way people look at him. But Connor always considers him so slowly, so intensely and attentively, and it makes Kevin flush to think that Connor can see right _through_ him, and not _at_ him, and maybe still like him anyway.

“Yes, I am,” says Connor. “Are you?”

Kevin is quiet for a moment, but then: “I didn’t get a Christmas Card from my parents. Did you?”

“No. I didn’t really expect one anyway.”

“I think I did,” Kevin says. “But now I don’t have one, I’m not surprised.”

Connor hums under his breath for a few moments, his expressive face unusually blank.

“I don’t know your family,” says Connor. “But did you send them a card?”

Kevin hadn’t thought about this.

“No,” he says. Connor nods, as if he already knew the answer and Kevin got it right. “We send a family picture every year. A photo of all of us, you know the ones? Me, and my older brother Jack, and my Mom and Dad and all of my aunts and uncles and my three little sisters and cousins. It was always so difficult to get everyone into the frame but we managed it every year. It was fun. It was the only thing outside of church that brought us all together.”

Connor, in all his diplomatic glory, says quietly, “You wanted the photo this year.”

“No,” says Kevin. “Well, yes, it would have been nice. But I’m just – this will be the first time in nineteen years that I won’t be in it.”

Connor laughs, like it burst out of him and caught him by surprise.

“I take it back, you are the same old Kevin Price we knew and tolerated ten months ago.”

Kevin hits him lightly on the arm. It’s a blow to his pride, but Kevin has been trying to learn the difference between easy, friendly banter and insults. “Shut up,” says Kevin. “You know what I mean.”

“You are a self-obsessed moron.”

“And you’re a jackass who takes pleasure in other people’s flaws,” says Kevin. A few months ago they would have been coldly glaring at each other and gritting their teeth and yelling.

“Fair point,” Connor says. He smiles. “Not being in your family picture isn’t such a big deal. That would have happened these two years anyway, Arnold or not. I keep telling myself, this is kind of cool, you know? No stuffy church and snowflake cookie cutters and gift of books titled ‘Resisting Temptation’. Ooh, and there’s no three brothers and my father forcing me to play some manly, masculine sports for men.”

“No ‘have you got a girlfriend yet, Kevin?’” Kevin sighs wearily. Connor gives him an odd look that Kevin doesn’t recognise, eyes twitching back and forth, like he doesn’t quite know what part of his face to focus on.

“Yeah,” says Connor, turning to look at the water. “That’s a good one.”

They sit quietly together, side by side, like they have been doing more and more as the long, hot days melt together. It still feels like Christmas. Kevin is spending the day with people that he loves, who all love each other, just to be together.

“We should take a picture!” Connor suddenly bolts upright, making Kevin jump. “Nabulungi has a camera, right?”

“She did. But you know Naba – she gets a little bit excited, and might have already used up all the film.”

“We can make this work,” Connor grips his arm. “You can still have your family photo this way, see? You and me and Naba and Arnold, and Mafala, and all of our brothers and sisters, and the Sunday School kids.”

Kevin feels like he’s floating on air. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve Connor McKinley. He’s usually an articulate person (not like Arnold is, of course) but he struggles in this moment to find the words to express what Connor means to him. And it’s important that he knows. It’s the _most_ important thing.

“We’ll need to sort your hair out first, though.” He brushes the hair away from his forehead and tangles his fingers in it. “Gosh, it’s gotten so long. And what happened here?” Connor twists a clumpy lock of hair and Kevin winces.

“Kamali didn’t want me to stop singing Jingle Bells.” Connor blinks at him, and then laughs. He doesn’t move his hands from Kevin’s hair. If anything, he twists more strands idly around his fingers, his forearms cradling Kevin’s face.

“Of course she didn’t,” says Connor. “It looks like it hurt, too. There’s a bump.”

“Do you want to kiss it better?” says Kevin. Connor’s mouth is wet and parted. He looks into Kevin’s eyes, and their faces are so close, and Kevin wants him to say yes, wants him to say yes more than he’s ever wanted anything, feeling braver than he has done since the General. He licks his lips.

“I -” starts Connor, but the moment has stretched past Kevin’s patience and he’s already kissing him.   
  
It is, for lack of a better word, Heavenly. Kevin wants the moment to stretch on and on forever. He feels – there are no fireworks, or swelling music, or anything like movies have taught him – but it is quiet and soft and Connor’s lips are chapped from the dry heat and his hands tighten in Kevin’s hair. He pushes harder and Connor pushes back. Their noses are squished together and when Kevin opens his mouth their teeth knock painfully, but then their tongues are touching and his brain turns to mush and there is nothing but Connor, and the way he smells and the way he sighs into his mouth.

When Kevin pulls away, reluctantly, Connor’s mouth follows his and he mumbles _tena, tena_ under his breath and against Kevin’s lips, and then they’re kissing again, and Kevin puts his hands on Connor’s waist and pulls him closer.

When the sun starts to set, they head back to the village with the backs of their hands brushing together so that they can get the picture while it’s still light. It’s not perfect, but Kevin couldn’t care less. There are heads cut off and Elder Neeley is blinking, but Kevin’s still wearing his flower necklace, and his arms are around Arnold and Connor, and Naba’s head is on Arnold’s shoulder, and the children are either half asleep or pulling faces, and if Kevin and Connor’s lips are swollen – well, nobody says anything, and it’s the best Christmas Kevin has ever had.

****

They don’t talk about it. Well, Connor doesn’t talk about it. Kevin didn’t even realise they weren’t talking about it until Kevin tried to kiss him again, round the back of the hut. They were gardening and the sun started to set and Connor’s cheeks were flushed and he licked his lips while Kevin watched him, so Kevin kissed him, because that was a thing they did, now.

“Elder, what are you doing?”

Or maybe not.

Connor pushes him away and touches his lips like they are burning. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and Kevin feels like something is squeezing the blood out of his heart.

“Oh,” says Kevin. “I thought we were. You know.”

“Well, you thought wrong,” says Elder McKinley, and his body is obviously itching for a fight. Kevin is tired and upset.

“Right. This was horribly embarrassing. I’m just going to. Go.”

“Of course you are, because you’re Kevin Price. Do something on the spur of the moment and run away from the consequences.”

Kevin stops in his tracks. “I told you not to use my name as an insult anymore,” he says wearily.

“Well, if the shoe fits,” Connor says, hands balled into fists.

Kevin remembers those hands, bandaging his palm, removing his tie, making flower necklaces for him. He remembers Connor’s hand in his as they laid side by side in the moonlight. He remembers their tongues touching and how Kevin felt lighter than air, and only Connor’s hands fisted into his hair kept him on the ground.

“If you want to throw this away,” says Kevin. “Then that’s your choice. Not mine. I’m not the one running away.”

“There’s nothing to run away from,” Connor says. “You don’t really mean anything to me. I felt lonely and you happened to be there.”

“That’s not true,” says Kevin. “We’re - you wouldn’t, with anyone else.”

Connor shrugs. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Elder Price.”

Oh. Kevin feels – Kevin doesn’t know how he feels.

He’s left Connor stood in the dirt without even realising his feet were moving and then he’s inside and he can’t breathe, was he running? He doesn’t remember running, and either his vision is blurred or the light is really low, because he can’t see anything, and his hip knocks painfully into the table, and it’s going to bruise, and Kevin thinks, _that felt good,_ and then he punches a window.

His knuckles are bleeding, running through the gaps in his fingers down the cut on the back of his hand, the ten year old scar on his wrist. The light burns his eyes as the other Elders rush in to find out what the noise was.

“Elder Price?”

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin. “I think I broke our window.”

“Clearly,” says Elder Neeley, moving over to inspect the damage. Elder Church is giving him a funny look.

“Your hands are bleeding,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Kevin.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go clean you up, huh?”

Kevin hates how often he’s led around like a child, or a dog on a leash. He doesn’t blame them. Kevin is a liability who can’t be trusted to look after himself. This is a truth as much as the sun will rise in the morning and Connor McKinley is the most selfish person in the world.

Arnold sits on the counter next to the sink while Elder Church holds Kevin’s hand under the faucet. Kevin watches the water run from red to clear with mild interest.

“You remember that we’re your friends, right, Elder Price?” When Kevin doesn’t say anything, he continues. “And you can talk to us, about you know, your problems.”

It’s pointed, and Kevin knows it. Elder Church wants Kevin to talk about what’s happening to him, about his sticky insides. Because everyone knows. And that’s a truth that scares him half to death.

Arnold says, “Of course he knows that, but he’s fine. He just had an accident.”

“I am not fine and it was not an accident,” says Kevin, angrily. He hasn’t spoken to Arnold like this since before the Incident. Arnold looks frightened, and this makes Kevin even angrier. “Stop talking for me. I am not a child, I can speak for myself. Fuck off.”

“You need help,” says Arnold, mouth hard, and his voice comes out low and gritty. “And I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need your pity.” He turns to Elder Church and pokes him in the chest. “And you can tell your mission companion to fuck off and die.”

“Okay, just because you had a fight with your boyfriend doesn’t mean to get to – break things and be so horrible to us. We’re just trying to help.”

“Arnold,” Kevin says, smiling, “Heavenly Father puts temptations on Earth for us, to test us. As long as you follow the rules, He won’t punish you.”

Arnold and Elder Church stare at him.

“Are you insane?”

“Maybe,” says Kevin, exhausted. His knuckles sting. He’s starting to feel shame stirring in his gut, and guilt, so he gets angry instead. “But who cares about Kevin Price anymore? I don’t mean anything.”

“I think I should leave,” says Elder Church, rounding up the others and shooing them out of the room. Arnold hops down from the counter.

“You’re scaring me,” says Arnold.

“I don’t care,” says Kevin, because he doesn’t, but he knows that he will.

“This is why people don’t like you,” says Arnold. Kevin feels like Arnold has reached right into his the hole in his chest. Arnold walks away, but turns back to look at Kevin as he’s halfway through the door. “I’m sorry that your parents were awful to you and your life didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to, and you’ve got this, I don’t know, identity crisis going on. But that’s your problem, not mine, not Elder McKinley’s, not anyone else. Stop making your issues the loudest thing in the room.”

Kevin stays by the sink for a really long time, until all the other sounds have died down. He’s too scared to go into his room and face Arnold. Arnold, who has been nothing but kind to him. What is _wrong_ with him? Why does he push away every good thing in his life and break it and make it hate him?

He hears the bell on the door but he doesn’t look up. He knows it’s Connor, from the way the air shifts, but he still doesn’t move. He stares at his shoes with his hands behind him gripping the counter, wishing the moment to be over. Connor stands and watches Kevin for a few, drawn out seconds before he disappears from the room without a word. 

***

For the first time since the plane landed, Arnold doesn’t come to Sunday School.

Kevin is pleasantly numb to it. Kids are the ultimate distraction. They’re needy and require all of his attention and Kevin is more than happy to give it.

It’s hard, though, to get over the person you’re halfway in love with, when you live in a foreign country in a small hut with them, where everyone knows everything, and you don’t speak Swahili, and most people’s English is broken, and it’s impossible to not accidentally see them wearing only a towel at least once a week.

Kevin is all on his own, but he’s not really. Nobody talks to him, but they watch him, waiting for him to slip up, waiting patiently for Kevin’s next meltdown. He remains cool and calm and collected. The zen centre of the universe. Nothing can bother him anymore. He’s hit rock bottom and made his bed there.

But then, out of the corner of his eye, there’s Connor. Kevin gets flustered and annoyed every time they make eye contact, and angrier at himself everytime he looks away first. And Kevin always looks away first. He _wants_ him. He wants Connor to crawl into his bed with him at rock bottom. Kevin wants him in a way that’s painful.

Kevin wants to leave Kitguli. He wants to take a one way ticket home and go back to the way things were before. His life was great before all of this happened. He fantasizes, when he can’t sleep at night, all the different versions of himself that went on different missions. In some, he loses his faith. In most, he doesn’t. There’s not a single alternate reality in which he feels so unwanted.

Kevin doesn’t leave, because he has no money and nowhere to go. He doesn’t go because it would make Nabulungi sad, because he doesn’t think he can say goodbye to the kids, to the sun and the air, to the little spot by the river. He doesn’t go because he knows, deep down, that Arnold isn’t really that mad at him. And there’s a tiny part of him that doesn’t go because he knows, sees it in his late-night fantasies, that there’s the possibility of a future where he gets to kiss Connor again. He feels disgusted with himself, but he still tries to remember how Connor’s hands felt on his skin when he pushed them under his shirt when he jacks off in the shower.

Kevin isn’t alone again with Connor until he pushes the door open and Connor looks up at the sound of the bell.

Kevin freezes, ice forming in his throat. He doesn’t like the look on Connor’s face – he’s not upset, or hurt, or angry. He looks calm and curious. Kevin looks away, always looks away first, and curses inwardly at just how small their hut is when he has to squeeze pass the couch that Connor is sitting on.

Connor reaches out and grabs his arm and Kevin stops entirely, without even thinking. Connor’s fingers burn on his wrist, again. It takes everything in Kevin to not look at Connor, even though he’s desperate to see his face, to hear what he has to say, he ignores the stutter his heart makes, because if he looks he’ll give in and he’ll lose himself in Connor and Connor’s mouth, press him into the couch and make him forget everything apart from Kevin’s name. Kevin doesn’t look at him.

“Feeling lonely?” he says, and wrenches his wrist free.

Connor doesn’t say anything, leaves his hand awkwardly limp over the arm of the couch, and Kevin wants Connor to contradict him so badly he feels like he’s vibrating. But he doesn’t.

He leaves Connor alone, leaves him to go be alone, and in his Arnold-less room he fantasizes a reality where he was never a Mormon, where none of them ever were, and they didn’t meet in Africa. He imagines a place in America, somewhere, maybe at college, where they meet at a coffee shop where one of them is working part time and the other one leaves their number on the cup. Or they meet at a party that neither of them want to be at, so they sneak off early to drunkenly press each other into the mattress. He imagines a reality where Kevin has his own apartment, where Connor is so often it’s practically his too, and they lay on his couch watching a movie under a blanket in the dark and he imagines wandering hands and mouths. He imagines taking Connor out for ice cream, and holding his hand walking in the almost-warm spring. Kevin wants to open up that dark hole inside himself, crawl inside it and never come out.


	3. Part Three

It turns out that the small porch of Nabulungi’s home is the perfect hideout.

He’s out in the open, fanning himself, sat on the floor in the shadow of the overhang. It’s not like people don’t know where he is, couldn’t simply walk right up to him, but they don’t. Nabulungi glares daggers at every single person who looks even slightly curiously over at him.

“Ignore them,” says Nabulungi. She offers him a bottle of water.

“They’re making it very difficult,” sighs Kevin. “They’re worried about me flipping out again.”

“So you stay with me until they realise they’re stupid,” she says.

Kevin squints up at her from under the hand that’s hiding his eyes from the sun. “Why are you hanging out with me anyway? Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

She gives him a scathing look. “Arnold wants me to keep an eye on you. He cares about you, but he also wants to teach you a lesson. He likes you very much, Elder Price. Sometimes I think he likes you more than he likes me.”

Kevin ignores his heart beating back to life.

“Oh, is that all?”

She kicks him from the stool she’s sitting on. “You’re also one of my favourite people and I am taking advantage of keeping you company,” and then she says, “dumbass,” because Arnold called Kevin that once and Nabulungi thought it was such a funny word that she won’t stop using it as a pet name.

“I do love you, Nabulungi,” he tells her. She scowls at him.

“You’re just using me for my good looks,” she says. Kevin smiles.

“I have enough of those for myself, thank you,” he says, and she kicks him even harder.

“You are very handsome, you know. Not my type. Too stupid. But you are very striking. It’s not hard to see why he likes you.”

“What, Arnold?” Kevin asks, startled.

“Too stupid,” Nabulungi mutters. “Elder McKinley.”

Kevin makes a noise and flops down onto his back.

“He doesn’t like me.”

“Yes, he does,” says Nabulungi, in her special Kevin voice, where she speaks slower and clearer. “Obviously.”

“Not according to him,” Kevin admits, too tired to pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “He made that very clear.”

“He looks at you the way Elder Cunningham looks at me.”

Kevin’s tongue feels too big for his mouth. “Please don’t say that.”

“Why not? You like him, and he likes you back. That sounds like a good thing,”

“It isn’t,” says Kevin. “It’s complicated.”

“There’s nothing complicated. You say to him, my beautiful Elder McKinley, you are the moon to my stars, I think about you everytime I’m bathing and I -”

“Heavenly Father, Naba, shut up,” and Kevin can’t help but laugh. “Is that what Arnold said to you?”

“Yes,” says Nabulungi, who doesn’t have the decency to look embarrassed about it. “It worked, didn’t it? Now I get to think those thoughts with him. I would advise you do the same, it’s wonderful.”

Kevin pulls a face. He always forgets how lewd she is. She all sunshine and flowers until she starts talking about getting down and dirty. It’s lovely, in its own way, that he has somebody who says all of the things he’s never been allowed to even think before now. It’s funny to her, sex and all that sort of stuff. It makes Kevin feel better about the new part of himself that woke up and won’t go back to sleep. He always forgets, and will never get over, that Arnold had sex before any of the rest of them. He definitely doesn’t like the grim reminders of that fact that Nabulungi likes to bring up at least every other day. But she’s happy, and she wants to talk about what makes her happy with somebody, and Kevin is glad it’s him and not someone else. He’s not sure anyone else here would let her joke about touching themselves, even though they’re nineteen or twenty and it’s a very small hut with very thin walls, and he thinks Connor probably would, if he ever grows the ability to laugh at himself. Doubtful.

“You and Arnold are supposed to be together though. I am doomed to have my thoughts alone forever.”

“Stop being a baby,” says Nabulungi. “You could have anyone you wanted. You must have had lots of dates, before.”

“Nope,” says Kevin. She looks sceptical. “Well, maybe. I’ve just never wanted anyone before. I didn’t even really think about it.”

“You are a very odd boy,” she says, and pats him on the head.

“I’ve definitely never had all of these horrible feelings before,” he says. “I mean I’ve, you know, had sexual thoughts, but never towards a person. It was always very vague, just – thoughts.”

He feels very uncomfortable. He doesn’t quite know how he’s ended up in this conversation.

“So you don’t know what you want,” says Nabulungi.

“No, just repressed,” says Kevin, and this makes her laugh.

“Oh, Kevin,” she sighs, and leans forward so her elbows are on her knees. She smiles. He glares at her.

“It’s not my fault that the person you like is very vocal about how much he likes you back. Very vocal. Too vocal.”

“I don’t mind that he talks about me,” says Nabulungi. “I like that Arnold shows me off.”

It hits Kevin, then, a gut-punching feeling of accidentally tripping over the words to describe something he’s pushed back to the periphery of his mind. He’s _jealous._

“I think that’s lovely, Nabulungi,” he says, and ignores the small spark of hatred he feels, the urge of knowing that somebody is better at something than him, has something he wants.

Her eyes are following somebody around, and Kevin doesn’t want to know what she’s watching, because he’s probably not going to like it. He knows that look on her face.

“Shush,” she says, holding up her hand. Kevin is amazed that she could tell he opened his mouth without even looking at him. “You,” she says, and it takes Kevin a moment to realise that she’s not talking to him. He looks up and, because life is cruel to him, Connor McKinley is standing a few feet away, looking startled.

Kevin hasn’t bathed in a few days. In _Uganda_. He knows his eyes are dark and puffy and he’s wearing a shirt with a stain on it. Connor, of course, has clearly washed his hair today because it’s all soft and bouncy, wispy in the way it gets when he goes out with it still wet, and his eyes look bright, and his clothes are clean. All these months of building the church have made his arms well-defined, and this inevitably makes Kevin wonder if it’s paid off under his shirt, too. He looks as wonderful as he did the last time Kevin saw him, and the time before that. Kevin’s mouth is still open. Kevin wants the ground to swallow him whole.

“You,” says Nabulungi. She stands up and points at him. “He is not an animal at the zoo. Go away.”

Kevin watches several different emotions flutter over Connor’s face, before he settles on annoyed and slightly flustered. He gives Kevin a withering look before huffing away, out of Kevin’s eyesight. Nabulungi’s eyes follow him the whole way. When she’s satisfied, she sits down next to Kevin with force, and says to him, “These white boys, they are like fucking flies.”

Kevin says, “Thanks, Nabulungi.”

She rests her head on his shoulder for a moment, and then whacks him round the back of his head with her hand.

“Dumbass,” she says. “You should get yourself a nice boy, like I did.”

Connor is nice, Kevin thinks. He’s stiff a lot of the time, and not the best conversationalist, but he is very polite and always interested in what everyone has to say. And sometimes he lets loose, and it’s a nice thing to watch, the lines of his shoulders smoothing out and his smile growing wide and wicked. He’s just not very nice to Kevin, apparently.

“I’ll keep my eye out for one,” he says. He won’t. There is only Connor, has only ever been Connor. It’s sort of all or nothing, for Kevin. Most things are.

***

Kevin is sixteen years old, and it’s his sister’s birthday. She turns nine today. There are a lot of birthdays in his family. This is the third birthday party Kevin has gone to this month. He feels very awkward, surrounded by people either ten years younger or twenty years older than him. Even Jack has abandoned him, as he’s off somewhere training for his mission next year. He’s training to be District Leader. They are all very proud of him.

The problem with being a sixteen year old boy is that you consist of a lot of arms and legs and not a lot else. He’s gangly, and looks odd in his shirt and tie. He supposes he’ll grow into it.

He sits on the grass in his backyard with Eleanor in his lap. She’s opening presents and getting sticky cake mess all over his trousers. He pulls a face at his mother, who ignores him and continues to chat with various women who have brought their kids along. They all look very prim and proper and not at all like the moms of nine year old girls.

He tries to busy himself with Eleanor and her friends as much as possible. He does french plaits on two of Eleanor’s friends, because he spent every day last Christmas fixing all three of his sister's’ hair for their ballet recitals. They’re each around a year apart and it makes them all insufferable for their brother who spends most of his free time running around after them all. Jack is always off being the eldest somewhere with his father, training to be the heir to the Price name or whatever it is they get up to. His father is always either at work or off with Jack wherever it is that they go, and only seems interested in spoiling his sisters silly. Their mother is surprisingly stiff around children for somebody who’s had five of them. And that leaves Kevin.

Kevin is also held up to more scrutiny than any of his siblings. He’s knows it’s partly his own fault, inviting a spotlight to follow him wherever he goes. Sometimes, he just wants to be left alone, but that’s not an option in a house of seven people who he has to perform for at all times. Kevin is tired, but he helps Eleanor pin the tail on the donkey, anyway. If only Kevin had tried harder when he was younger, maybe he wouldn’t have to work so hard now.

But it will be worth it, Kevin reasons with himself. One day he’s going to get what he’s worked for, will continue working for, and that’s the whole point of everything. To earn what he has been promised. Even when things don’t quite make sense to him, he knows what not to question. Although even Kevin is still a little bit iffy on dinosaur bones coming from space.

Kevin gets tired of nine-year-old gossip pretty quickly, though, and soon he’s over by the buffet table trying to look busy so nobody talks to him. No such luck.

“Kevin, how are you?”

Kevin looks up to see the friendly-but-stern face of Mrs Montgomery. He hasn’t seen her for seven years, the year she held his hand in the car on the way to the hospital, hasn’t even thought about her since then. His wrist itches.

“Hello, Mrs Montgomery,” Kevin says, and offers his hand. She shakes it without hesitation, and then kisses him on the cheek.

“You’re so tall!” she exclaims, beaming. “And you were one of the smaller boys. It gave you a bit of a complex. Has that worn off?”

Kevin stares at her, mouth open. She’s the most abrasive person he’s spoken to all day and he feels horrifically uncomfortable.

“No,” he says. “Probably not.”

She laughs, and loads her plate.

“How have you been?”

“Fine,” says Kevin, because he has been. Mostly. “I’m starting my junior year in September.”

“Oh, that makes me feel old,” she says. “Did you braid Caroline’s hair? She’s my daughter, it looks terrific.”

“Thanks,” says Kevin, and shrugs. “Three sisters.”

“Well, it was lovely seeing you, Kevin.”

“You’re not a Mormon,” Kevin blurts.

“No, I’m not,” she says mildly. “Your mother was very kind to invite us here.”

“You must not have a lot to talk about.”

“Not really, no.”

Kevin thinks about this for a while.

“What’s it like?”

He’s disgusted with himself as soon as he says it. He knows that being a Mormon is to be a higher being. But he’s so curious, and he’s never had anyone to ask before. He doesn’t know what he wants her to say. That she lives in a post-apocalyptic hellscape? That Satan plagues her, that without the protection of the Holy Ghost she has experienced more hardship than his family? Kevin doesn’t want any of those things for her. She was always so nice to him.

“It feels the same to me as being a Mormon does to you,” she says. “The way things are supposed to be.”

It’s a good answer. Kevin mulls it over.

“I understand,” he says. He knows he’s supposed to tell her all about the Book and why it is important to follow God’s rules if she wants to get into Celestial Heaven. But he doesn’t. He’ll save that for his mission, anyway. He thinks Mrs Montgomery is doing just fine on her own.

“Kevin,” she says, warily. “You can choose the things you want. You can decide for yourself what things are supposed to be for you. Do you understand that?”

Kevin does. His father refers to it as being influenced by Satan. Things might seem fine, but his spirit will suffer in the afterlife. He doesn’t really have choices. Heavenly Father makes choices for him, and that’s the way it has always and will always be.

“I am exactly what I want to be,” he says, and she shrugs, and smiles a little sadly.

“How’s your arm been?” she asks. It makes him feel a bit sick.

“Fine,” he says. “It hurts, sometimes, when it’s cold or something. But mostly it’s fine.”

“That’s good,” Mrs Montgomery says. Kevin is so grateful when Caroline runs up to her mother to ask for another piece of cake that he almost passes out from relief.

His arm is fine. He’s fine. Everything is fine.

“It was good to see you again,” he tells Mrs Montgomery.

“You too,” she says.

Kevin feels funny for the rest of the day. He cleans up after the party and reads a book to his sisters. He can’t sleep that night, although he is exhausted, feeling the scars on his wrist over and over, again and again until his fingers feel numb.

***

Kevin is sat cross-legged under a tree, reading a book, when a shadow blocks the sun out and makes it impossible to read. He looks up, squinting, and sighs when he sees Connor.

“What do you want?” Kevin asks miserably.

“I lied,” says Connor, like it’s causing him pain. “I lied to you.”

“I thought Mormons don’t lie.”

“Kevin,” says Connor, and Kevin winces when he says his name. “We haven’t been Mormons for a very long time.”

Kevin shrugs. “Speak for yourself.”

“Don’t start. You were the one who got us into this mess. ‘Fuck the mission president,’ remember? This is all your fault.”

“I guess it is,” says Kevin. “But you decided to stay. I didn’t choose that for you.”

“Like I had a choice. Like you weren’t -” he gestures wildly with his hands and trails off.

“Like I wasn’t, what?”

“You know. You.”

Kevin squints up at him. Connor is playing nervously with fingers.

“Kevin Price, you mean.”

“No, not – well. Kind of. You’re just, so.”

“Use your words,” Kevin says. “Don’t talk to me if you have nothing to say.”

Connor runs a hand over his face. “Look, I mean. You were just there, looking like, the way you do, handing me everything I’d ever wanted, and then we were all stuck with your consequences. I’d have had a choice if it was Arnold, or, or, Elder Thomas, but it wasn’t. It was you. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Well I’m sorry I ruined your life,” says Kevin. “There’s not much I can do about that now. Run back to the Church. Go home to your parents, whatever you want. Just stay the Hell away from me.”

“I can’t,” says Connor, frustrated. “I can’t stay away from you.”

“Well I’m not leaving,” says Kevin, huffing. “I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

“It’s not fair,” says Connor. “It’s not fair that you are just so.” He waves his hand up and down, and Kevin knows what he means. He’s not entirely stupid. “I lied to you. You are important. You are important to me. And I’m sorry for lying.”

“I don’t. I don’t forgive you. You made me feel – I put so much effort into you. I was starting to feel halfway normal again. And then you,” he gestures to nothing. “You ruined it.”

“I know,” says Connor.

“We could’ve been,” Kevin takes a breath. This is probably the only chance he’s going to get to tell Connor the things he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about, compulsively, since they last spoke. It’s been weeks. “We could have been something incredible. I really like you, and I liked kissing you, but then you stopped kissing me and it sucks. And I still like you, and I still want to kiss you, even though it turned out you’re a horrible person. So I’d really like you to leave. And stop talking to me. It’s – it’s so hard to be around you and know what it’s like to be with you but have to pretend like I don’t remember and I don’t think about it all the time.”

Kevin winces at that train wreck of a speech. Connor is staring at him, mouth parted, and unmistakably angry.

“How can you – how can you do that? Just talk about it?”

Kevin blinks. “Well, we were both there, weren’t we? It’s not like it’s a secret.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. How can you have feelings for a man and just be okay with it?”

“Oh,” says Kevin. “This is about you. You lied to me. And I was supposed to, what, swallow my pride and come running after you to help you get over your gay crisis?”

“Answer the damn question.”

“Fine. I’m okay with it because nothing the Church ever told us was real. The universe doesn’t just make up rules that we have to blindly follow because that’s just the way it is. Are you happy?”

“Jesus wept,” says Connor. “You really have lost it, haven’t you? They weren’t kidding. You punched a window because I wouldn’t kiss you? And then sabotaged your relationship with Arnold, the only good thing in your life. Congratulations, Kevin, you’ve really exceeded our expectations of you.”

“Stop doing that,” Kevin says, standing up so they’re facing each other awkwardly. Kevin wishes he hadn’t, because now their lips are so close, and he feels more in control of the situation, and all he wants to do is grab Connor by the neck and kiss him until he stops breathing. “You can’t just put me on a pedestal and get angry when I’m not what you wanted.”

“You’re a pompous, self-centred ass.”

“And you’re a jerk who won’t let himself have what he wants so he takes it out on other people. What else is new?”

“You know what, screw you, Kevin _Price,_ ” and Kevin makes a noise he didn’t know he was capable of making. “You’ve been handed everything you’ve ever wanted on a platter and then beg for more.”

“You know, at the time, it didn’t really feel like begging. Oh my gosh, Kevin, yes, gosh, kiss me again.”

“Don’t you dare,” says Connor.

“Why not?” asks Kevin, his face the picture of innocence. “Can’t you just, I don’t know. Turn it off?”

“Fuck you,” Connor seethes, and they’re standing so close, and Kevin can count his freckles, and he can feel his hot breath as he huffs. “Your mother was right, Elder Price. You’ve been nothing but a disappointment.”

Kevin still wants to kiss Connor, push him against the tree, stop him saying hurtful things with his mouth and his tongue.

Kevin punches him. Right in his stupid red nose.

“I’m okay with it because I don’t hate myself!”

“Well,” Connor smiles, blood dribbling onto his lip. “We both know that’s not true, don’t we?”

Kevin’s knuckles have torn open again, and he’s pretty certain some of the blood on Connor’s face is his. It’s not a bad feeling. He tries not to show how much pain he’s in – Kevin forgot about his wrist. Kevin can hear somebody shouting his name, and several more shouting Connor. He wonders how loud they were, how many people heard. He looks at Connor’s hand clutching his nose and tilting his head back slightly to stop the blood, looks at the skin on his neck, and does what he does best. Something spur of the moment, and then runs away from the consequences.

***

It’s Arnold who finds him, because it’s always Arnold, face down on his bed.

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin, without looking up. “I really, really am.”

“It’s okay, bud,” the mattress sinks where Arnold sits down. “You’ve been going through a tough time.”

“I shouldn’t have been so horrible to you,” says Kevin. “I hate it when you’re mad me.”

“You're not horrible, you know,” says Arnold, sounding guilty. “You’re just. You can be quite abrasive?”

“You’re telling me,” says Kevin, muffled by a blanket.

“I’m uh, sorry too. About Elder McKinley.”

Kevin makes a pained noise into the pillow. He has never wanted to talk less about anything in his life than Connor McKinley right now.

“It’s fine,” says Kevin. “That’s over.”

“Listen, I know you’re totally head over heels for him. And I’m pretty sure he likes you too, bud.”

“I know,” says Kevin. “That’s the problem.”

“I know you’re like, having some issues. And you punched the window and stuff. And that’s why everyone thinks you did it, and they’re all kinda scared of you, and really mad.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“No, listen. I know you, and I know you wouldn’t do it without a reason. So spill. What did he do?”

Kevin rolls over. “Do you really wanna know? Everything?”

“Of course I do! I tell you everything. Like when me and Nabulungi were, you know, and we tried -”

“Oh my God, okay, okay I’ll tell you,” he sighs. “Just never talk about that again. Ever.”

Arnold mimes zipping his mouth up and sits cross legged, looking like an eager puppy.

“Okay, so. We were, you know, for a while. And well, he made me feel all these feelings, like, the best and worst feelings in the world at the same time. For months. And then we sort of, fell together, and we kissed, and it was great and everything worked out for us. And then I tried to kiss him again, and he was – disgusted by it. He told me he was just lonely. And then I, you know, I don’t want to be anywhere near him, but he keeps being there, being so wonderful all of the time and I can’t have it, because he is _repulsed_ by what we did, and I can’t understand why because it was one of the best memories I’ll ever have. And I still want to kiss him literally all the time.”

“Yeah, I kind of got those vibes. You know, with the staring and the moon eyes and everything.”

Kevin snorts. “Right. He just kept being there, in my space, everywhere I went. It was like he was following me around and judging everything I did, even though he threw away the right to have a say in anything I do when he said I didn’t mean anything to him!”

Arnold stares at him. Kevin wants him to say something, because if he doesn’t, Kevin is gonna tumble further and further and open up the sticky black hole because he just doesn’t know when to shut up. But Arnold remains quiet.

“And then, and then I’m minding my own business, and he comes over to me and tells me that he lied. That I am important to him. And I tell him to shove off and leave me alone, because I like him so much and then I said all of this really embarrassing stuff about, you know, my feelings. And then he got mad at me because I’m not having some kind of gay crisis and called me a disappointment. And then I punched him in the face. And I _liked_ it.”

Arnold lets out a low whistle.

“So you like each other, and you kissed, and then Connor said he doesn’t care about you, and then he says that he does care about you, but is mad at you because you care about him?”

“Pretty much,” says Kevin, fiddling with the blanket and averting his gaze.

“You know, you guys don’t have exactly the healthiest relationship or anything. What with all the fighting all of the time, and stuff. And I think Elder McKinley would just hate himself, for liking you, you know, if it was just about that. But he’s mad at _you_. Because he thinks he’s not – worthy of you, or whatever.”

“That makes no sense,” says Kevin.

“It makes perfect sense,” Arnold shrugs, “you’re just emotionally dense.”

“How dare you. I’m incredibly in tune with my own feelings.”

“And funny, too,” Arnold says, and ruffles his hair. “That blows, buddy. Do you want me to punch him too?”

“That would be nice,” says Kevin.

“You know he’s uh, defending you,” says Arnold sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. “To everyone. Saying that he pushed you too far and it’s his fault, really. I think they think that he’s uh, blinded, in a, ‘he hurts me because he loves me’ kinda way, so he hasn’t actually done you any favours. He might have even made it worse, come to think of it.”

“Arnold. Shut up.”

“Right, sorry. Sorry. Me and my big mouth! I just thought you should know, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” says Kevin. “Did I break his nose?”

Arnold giggles. “I don’t think so, but it looked like it hurt. His face is all swollen and puffy. I think he might have actually been crying. Oh, maybe I shouldn’t have told you that part.”

“Do you really think it hurt so much he cried?”

“No, you idiot,” says Arnold, fondly. Kevin is glad they’re friends again. “He cried _over_ you, not _because_ of you.”

Kevin wishes that didn’t feel nice, but it does. Good, he thinks, I’m glad, and he doesn’t take it back.

***

Connor – Elder _McKinley_ – is half way up a very tall tree for God knows what reason when Kevin spots him there, and then his brain pretty much shuts down.

“Elder, what in Heavenly Father’s name are you _doing?_ ”

To Connor’s credit, if he did hear Kevin, he’s doing a very convincing job of pretending like he didn’t.

“He is getting bananas,” says Gotswana, “like Kimbay does every day. Are you okay, Elder?” He puts the back of his hand on Kevin’s forehead but Kevin fans him off.

“Yes, but why is Elder McKinley doing it? Where is Kimbay?”

“She got sick,” Gotswana is looking at him strangely. “So I prescribed the Elder do her work for her today.”

“That is not quality healthcare! Elder!” he manages to yell at both of them with one breath. “Elder McKinley, will you _get down from there?”_

“Make me,” Connor’s voice floats down, and he climbs even higher and Kevin can see that there aren’t even any bananas in the sparse branches at the top.

“Go fuck yourself,” Kevin yells.

“Oh, I will. No thanks to you.”

Kevin burns bright red. They’re creating quite a scene, and Elder Church and Elder Michaels have come over from their station at the well to figure out what in the world is going on, and stare at Kevin with their mouths open.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Kevin presses, because this is _important,_ and because he feels so _angry,_ he adds, “stop being a child and come down.”

“No,” says Connor. Kevin can feel everyone’s eyes on him.

“I’m not leaving until you get down.”

“Well, I’ll just stay up here all night then.”

“You are such a drama queen!”

“I don’t want to talk to you!” sing-songs Connor, and then the branch his left leg is standing on wobbles. Then the one for his arms.

“Connor! I don’t care, you don’t have to talk to me ever again if you don’t want, but you _need to get down from that tree right this second –“_

Suddenly, Kevin can’t breathe at all. His eyes start watering – not with tears, with effort to remember how his lungs work – and he feels suddenly, overwhelmingly nauseous. Not again, he thinks. Not in front of everybody.

“Kevin?” Connor’s voice sounds very far away. Because he’s so high up, his brain reminds him. It’s not very helpful.

“He’s having a panic attack,” says Gotswana, “somebody go get Prophet Cunningham.”

“No I am _not_ having a panic attack,” Kevin says through gritted teeth. He feels a bit wild, like he’s just had a lot of coffee, like he’s floating somewhere above caring what other people think of him. “And I don’t need Arnold to babysit me every time I have a tantrum.”

He watches Connor scale the tree like Connor is a predator coming towards him and Kevin is standing very still, eyes darting back and forth, trying to figure out the right moment to run without getting caught.

When Connor drops down to the floor with a thud, making dust rise in the air, Kevin expects him to demand an explanation, or to ignore him, or to make a disparaging comment, or stalk off to the other Elders in a huff, or anything other than looking at Kevin like he’s the only thing in the world. 

Connor is safe and has two feet planted firmly on the ground. That’s all that matters.

Kevin turns and pushes past the other Elders without a word.

Connor, of course, follows him, because if Kevin is a car crash then Connor can’t stop rubbernecking.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me,” says Kevin, when Connor has followed him all the way to the river and there’s nowhere left to go.

“I didn’t,” says Connor, who comes to stand next to him. “But then you started screaming, and I would really like to know _why.”_ Connor grabs Kevin’s wrist to try and stop his shaking hand. It doesn’t really work, but it’s a nice gesture. His fingertips sizzle on his skin. It’s been so long since Connor touched him. When he finally looks into Connor’s face, he’s looking at him with that dark expression that Kevin doesn’t understand, and he’s still so _angry_ at Connor, at himself, at Heavenly Father, at Africa, that Kevin kisses Connor as hard as he can.

He places both of his hands on Connor’s face and curls his fingertips in the hair on the nape of his neck, and it feels so _good_ , better than how it feels when he indulges in the memories of Christmas and Connor’s mouth. Connor wraps his arms lazily over Kevin’s shoulders and the gesture seems so intimate, so familiar, and that causes a surge of something that Kevin can’t put his finger on so he kisses Connor harder, wetter, to try to chase it.

They end up with Connor flat on his back, Kevin pressing into him as hard as he can, needing to feel Connor everywhere, right _here_ , underneath him where he can’t get away, just for this moment. Kevin wants to hold on to this. He wants to press Connor so far into the dirt that they get buried alive like this, together, forever. Every time their tongues touch Kevin’s whole body reacts. He can feel Connor’s stomach convulse when Kevin bites down on the skin behind his ear.

“Oh, God,” Connor moans, and Kevin feels like his whole life has been leading him to hear those words, in that way, from that mouth.

Kevin lifts himself off Connor’s body slightly, holds himself up by his palms.

“I want to answer again,” Kevin says, kissing Connor when Connor chases his lips upwards.

“Hm?” says Connor, distracted trying to kiss Kevin again anywhere he can find; this time he just about manages to get the corner of Kevin’s mouth.

“Ask me again. The thing about my arm was stupid.”

Connor’s eyes are so soft that Kevin forgets, for a moment, that they’re angry at each other.

“Tell me something you haven’t told anyone before,” Connor half-whispers.

“I want to fuck you,” says Kevin into Connor’s mouth. Connor makes a _noise_ and Kevin is so, so screwed.

He kisses him, over and over, and then over again for good measure, and grinds into Connor until they’re both writhing and panting nothing more than _please_ and _yes._ He’s shirtless on top of Connor in the afternoon sun by the river in Kitguli with his hand down Connor’s pants, and really, it’s not a bad first time. Not at all. It’s actually rather wonderful.

“Elder McKinley,” Kevin breathes. He pulls back to look him in the eyes and Connor comes suddenly over Kevin’s hand. It’s the best thing Kevin has ever seen. And Kevin has been to the Epcot Centre.

Kevin follows not long after, grinding down onto Connor’s hip desperately. He collapses onto Connor’s body and rests his head in the crook of his neck. Connor has wrapped his arms around him and Kevin has sunk his weight until it feels like they’ve melted together. Kevin doesn’t dare to move, or say anything, because then they’ll remember all the reasons why this was a bad idea and why they were so mad at each other in the first place.

“You’re okay,” says Connor eventually, and grips on to Kevin’s shaking shoulders with shaking hands.

“So are you,” Kevin says.

Kevin stays on top of Connor for a heartbeat too long, allows himself the feeling of keeping him trapped before rolling over so he’s laid next to him.

“You broke your arm,” says Connor. “When you were a kid.”

“Yeah,” says Kevin, because Connor is always taking secrets and twisting them around to hurt him. Kevin doesn’t even think Connor knows he’s doing it. There’s no point letting Connor talk him in circles. Kevin is too tired and happy to get worked up over this. It was a long time ago. “My wrist, technically.”

“You fell out of the tree.”

Kevin offers his arm to Connor, tilts it so Connor can see the scar. “Here, see? That’s where they put the pins in.”

Connor touches it and it sends goosebumps up and down Kevin’s entire body.

“Did it hurt?”

“Obviously,” Kevin winces. Connor’s still running his fingers over his wrist like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s seen in a while. Kevin feels like he’s drunk again, too content to care about scrutiny. “My parents didn’t take me to the hospital, so it never really set right.”

Kevin thinks Connor will make a comment about that, doesn’t understand why he said it, hates how words tumble out of his mouth without thinking.

“I don’t know. I can vouch from personal experience that it does an excellent job.”

Kevin cringes, then laughs and whacks Connor’s chest with his outstretched arm.

“Are we talking about this now?” Kevin asks.

“Probably not,” Connor says and he turns on his side to face him. “Do you hate me?”

Kevin thinks about it. The longer he waits the tenser Connor’s muscles feel where they’re pressed into his side. He enjoys the feeling, stringing Connor out for once.

“No,” he admits. “I just hate how you make me feel.”

Connor is quiet, his expression is calm and collected, and they look into each other’s eyes. They’re so blue it’s startling. When he looks at Kevin like that – it sends a thrill up his spine which is more terrifying than exciting.

“You’re my best friend,” says Connor, his voice even.

“That’s sad,” Kevin tells him, and he means it as a fact, not an insult.

“Isn’t it,” Connor sighs. “I can’t stand you half the time.”

“Nobody argues with their friends as much as we do. Friends don’t – friends don’t have sex on the ground outside.”

“I know that,” says Connor. He doesn’t say anything else. Kevin guesses he doesn’t want to broadcast his feelings, prefers to keep them tucked in, safe, where they’ll drive him insane. “I’m sorry I was being such a dick to you, about the tree.”

“Don’t be,” Kevin does his best imitation of a shrug from his position on the floor. Connor lays one hand on his stomach and rests his chin on it, looking up at Kevin. “It got me laid.”

Connor doesn’t laugh, like Kevin intended, desperate to break the tension. Instead, Connor smiles slowly, looking like the cat that got the cream. Kevin’s body tingles all over. Connor lifts himself up, crawling up Kevin’s body at the same time, until his hands are framing his face and his knees are pressed to the outside of Kevin’s hips. His hair falls onto Kevin’s forehead and Connor leans down.

“We can arrange for that to happen again, if you’d like,” he murmurs. Kevin doesn’t even pretend to think about it. Kevin kisses him, and Connor kisses him back, slow but forceful, like he wants to, like it might mean something. Of course Kevin would like. He curls his fingers in Connor’s hair and touches their tongues in a way that he hopes comes across as yes, please and not I’ll take what I can get.

***

They go back to the way they were before - substituting actual talking with significant looks - only now they’re sleeping together, too.

They have sex everywhere. It would be disgusting if it wasn’t so extraordinary. If he could go back in time and tell himself that in less than a year he’d be in Uganda, getting a blowjob from a very cute boy in a dirty tool shed, pulling his hair and enjoying it more than any prayer or verse - Kevin thinks he might have spontaneously combusted.

Kevin feels weird about it, because after the hazy, intense period of their new arrangement began to fade, he became acutely aware than Kevin likes Connor in a whole different way than Connor likes him. It makes him agitated and bristly. It makes being around Connor so much more frustrating and it’s sort of amazing how having sex with each other made them argue even more. Everything they do is back to front. Connor is the furthest away from loving Kevin he’s ever been.

The more Kevin bristles, the more agitated he gets, the more he pushes Connor into walls as soon as they’re alone and bites at his bottom lip until it’s puffy. The more he needs to see Connor come undone in front of him, watch his body writhe and relax under his hands, the more broken Kevin needs his name to sound from Connor’s mouth. And then the more agitated he gets, because he’s greedy and can’t help himself and it’s not fair that another thing he wanted more than anything hasn’t turned out the way he planned. The weird Pavlovian response he has between anger and arousal is startling and significantly worrying.

Kevin tries to explain the vicious circle he’s unfortunately gotten himself into to Arnold and Nabulungi while keeping it as PG-13 as possible. He’s not particularly successful, because they’re both such hungry gossips. Everybody else here is too damned nice to have any drama.

“What’s angry sex like?” Nabulungi asks, and Arnold gazes up at Kevin in awe. Kevin pulls a face at him.

“What’s sex that isn’t angry like?” he counters.

“Very fulfilling,” says Nabulungi, and Kevin knows he’s being laughed at.

“This is so cool,” says Arnold, and Kevin doesn’t think there’s been a day since he met Arnold that he wasn’t completely baffling. “You know, my sexual rebellion was with a beautiful girl who I’m in love with and I’m going to end up marrying anyway. Yours is like, hot gay sex in bathrooms in the middle of the night. It’s awesome.”

“It is not,” says Kevin.

“Don’t lie, I’ve heard you have hot gay sex in the bathroom. You’re lucky our bedroom is the closest to it.”

“One, that’s gross, and two, I am very well aware of the hot gay sex part, but it is certainly not awesome.”

“You described him jerking you off as ‘mind blowing,’” Arnold says, and Kevin glares at Nabulungi.

“That was a private conversation!” Nabulungi shrugs, shameless as ever. “No, the sex is awesome, it’s the _after_ bit which sucks, and then that kind of ends the whole experience shameful and sad.”

“ _You_ suck,” says Nabulungi. “Why don’t you just talk to him about it?”

“Take him out on a date!” Arnold adds, unhelpfully.

“You guys are the worst,” Kevin glares at them. “Haven’t you been listening? The point is that Connor doesn’t want to talk and doesn’t want to go on a date.”

“Well, have you actually asked him?”

“I spewed my feelings over him and he used my mother against me. Doesn't really vibe with dating.”

“Dumbass,” says Nabulungi. “You told him how much you care for him and he still fucks – don’t pull that face, Elder Cunningham - fucks you every other day. You’re an oblivious idiot or he’s a jerk.”

“It’s both,” says Arnold, and they laugh. Kevin’s cheeks burn.

“I hate you both,” says Kevin. “So much.”

“If he’s just using you for your body, I wouldn’t blame him,” says Arnold, giving him a lewd look, before bursting out laughing. “Sorry, hard to keep a straight face.”

“Honestly, you just can’t stop flattering me today. I’ve never felt better about myself.” Kevin deadpans. He doesn’t feel well. Knowing that Connor’s feelings for him don’t extend much past ‘I enjoy it when we mutually orgasm’ is exhausting. “I’m pretty certain you’re not supposed to be head over heels for the friend you have benefits with.”

Arnold cocks his head sympathetically. “You really do like him, don’t you?”

They’re all quiet for a moment, before Kevin says, exasperated, “And where have you been the last ten months?”

“A year,” says Nabulungi. “It’s been over a year now.”

Kevin winces. That’s an awfully long time. No wonder Kevin is so tired.

“Talk to him,” says Arnold, earnestly.

“I told you,” says Kevin. “I can’t.”

Arnold and Nabulungi make an identical, pitying expression.

“Look,” Kevin says, because he wears his bleeding heart on his sleeve and he’s getting bored of pretending he doesn’t. “It’s complicated. And I really like him, and he doesn’t like me in the same way, and that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be some fairy tale romance like you guys have. So we only have sex, so what? It’s better than nothing, right? If I’m just some stepping stone on Connor’s path to figuring himself out and becoming happy with who he is, that’s fine with me. It’s not like this is forever. We’re not going to be Uganda forever. One day we’ll leave and go back to America and then none of this will matter. I’ll get over it.”

Arnold opens and closes his mouth like a fish. Nabulungi is watching Kevin with sad eyes.

“You deserve better than that,” says Nabulungi, and Kevin doesn’t believe her. “You can’t let him use you like this.”

Kevin snorts. “I’m pretty certain I’m the one using him. I think that I’m taking advantage of Connor’s, you know, identity crisis to get my rocks off or whatever. I’m the bad guy, here.”

“You are not,” says Arnold, sounding a little angry. “It’s not like you started sleeping together out of nowhere. People don’t – people don’t run out into a storm after their booty call. Or slow dance with them at a wedding, in front of everyone. You don’t punch somebody in the face if you only want to get them off.”

Kevin knows this, and he’s annoyed at Arnold, because Arnold is saying all the things to him which his brain has locked away to help him get a grip of a situation that rapidly span out of his control.

“He said I was his best friend,” says Kevin, miserably. “How screwed up is that?”

“Pretty screwed,” says Arnold, watching him. “But he doesn’t really talk to anyone else. Even Elder Church can’t get him to open up. And now he doesn’t talk to you, either. It’s like he’s pushing you away and trapping you at the same time.”

He’s not wrong. Connor refuses to talk to him unless they’re having sex, and even then refuses to say much at all, but he kisses Kevin desperately, like he needs him, too. Kevin couldn’t leave him if he tried.

“When my mother died,” says Nabulungi, hesitantly. “I lost myself. I thought that it was my fault she’d gone. I told myself that I would never love anyone as much as I loved my mother again, because they would leave me, too. And then I met Elder Cunningham, and he showed me a better way. I’m not saying that falling in love saves you. I mean that sometimes you think the world works a certain way for you, that this is what you’re stuck with. But it’s not. You have the power to change things, if you ask for someone to help you. You are not alone.”

Kevin is dumbfounded. Nabulungi has never talked about her mother before. He understands how seriously she must be worried about him. He doesn’t know how losing her mother can compare to Kevin’s unrequited feelings. But it’s not just about that, he realises. It’s about Kevin’s dark hole in his chest, it’s about Kevin punching a window, it’s about the scars on his wrist and how he had freaked out in front of the whole village just because Connor climbed a tree.

Kevin thinks about Connor. He thinks about how Connor has the power to change things, too. He thinks about the lot that Connor has been dealt with in life. He imagines a scrawny, teenage Connor, shutting himself down and hiding everything away and hoping that the power of prayer will save him from going to Hell. He thinks about an innocent Connor, one who doesn’t know that the world is against him, who doesn’t think that he’s somehow innately wrong, falling for his best and only friend. He thinks about Connor pining, the way Kevin is, for somebody who could never want him in the same way. He thinks about Connor losing the person he cares about the most because Connor dared to want to kiss him.

He remembers Connor, the scared look on his face when they all decided to stay. When Kevin dangled the carrot of change, of breathing fresh air, of allowing himself to break rules and find out who he is outside of a shirt and tie and a name badge. He remembers Connor clutching his arm in the kitchen. He remembers him, holding his hand, asking Kevin not to push him away, of Connor stroking his hair as he pretended to be asleep and Connor’s eyelashes sticking together with rain as he pressed his face into Kevin’s wet chest and cried.

That’s not what friends do, Kevin remembers Connor telling him, after he watched Kevin braiding Nabulungi’s hair from afar. That was so long ago, now. One of their first fights. Connor doesn’t understand that you can kiss somebody and be their friend, too. Connor thinks it’s one or the other. He asked Kevin, absurdly, if the three of them were some kind of couple. He remembers Connor watching him, always watching him, how they went from fighting straight to more-than-friends and then nothing at all, other than getting each other off.

Kevin wonders what Connor remembers about him. Does he think about how Kevin threw up and Connor wanted to kiss him anyway? Does he think about Kevin’s first meltdown, in the kitchen, remember how his fingers felt on Kevin’s wrist as vividly as Kevin does? What is Connor thinking about, right now? Kevin hopes that Connor understands that Kevin isn’t going anywhere, but he knows, now, that Connor doesn’t realise that Kevin really is head over heels for him, would follow him to the ends of the Earth if Connor ran there.

Connor doesn’t have an Arnold, or a Nabulungi, to tell him that he’s being an idiot and to know him better than he knows himself, what he needs to hear, to tell him what it is that he wants. Connor McKinley is a hot mess of a former Mormon, who is alone in Uganda, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, without the church to tell him what he needs to do and needs to say and who he needs to be.

“Thank you, Sister Hatimbi,” Kevin says. He smiles at her, more genuinely than he has done for weeks. He feels lighter, his head clearer, the dusty cogs of his brain slowly shifting back into gear. Nabulungi smiles back, and moves to sit next to Kevin, looping her arm through his and resting her head on him. Arnold moves to the other side of him, his arm around Kevin’s shoulders, and they sit quietly until Kevin remembers that he needs to breathe.

***

So Kevin starts his new plan: woo Connor McKinley.

Well, Kevin guesses he’s already wooed him, what with all the kissing. It’s not like Kevin doesn’t know that Connor is attracted to him.

But still, that’s what he refers to it in his head, because wooing is more like hand-holding and taking him out for meals and giving him flowers and girly stuff like that, rather than you know, all the hot, filthy gay sex they just seem to keep accidentally on purpose having. Kevin is pretty certain they’re supposed to go from hand-holding to dating and then have sex and _then_ have kinky sex, but he went straight from hand-holding to screwing Connor so hard his head bashes against the wall and well, Kevin is kind of annoyed that he’s missed out on all of the stuff in the middle. This is Kevin taking the power to change his life into his own hands. This is Kevin asking for what he wants.

It’s a lot harder than it sounds, but he’s got Arnold to give him encouraging looks whenever he gets disheartened, and Nabulungi’s exasperated face every time he lays his head in her lap morosely because Connor ignored him, _again,_ to go hang out with another Elder or do some “very important work” (Kevin has told him so many times that they aren't a district anymore, so the district leader doesn’t actually have any important work to do, but Connor gets all flustered and annoyed when you ask him about it).

Kevin decides to start small, because Connor is a very confrontational person – well, with Kevin, anyway – and he knows that Connor will call him out on it and then that will lead to them arguing and then Kevin will have somehow found himself with Connor’s hand on his, _you know,_ and kissing him so hard Kevin thinks his tongue will fall off, and that is exactly the opposite of what Kevin is going for.

The problem is that Kevin has no self-control whatsoever, which is how he found himself in this mess, anyway. Kevin is very aware that he was the person to kiss Connor first, and kiss him first the second time, and probably all of the times after that, and it was _his_ hand that wandered first, and now it’s Kevin pursuing Connor, again. Kevin tries not to think about it too much, because Kevin would like to believe that Connor wants him, and isn’t just swept up in the whole ‘Kevin Price gets what he wants’ thing. For what Kevin lacks in self-restraint, he makes up for in the ability to compartmentalise.

He decides to start with repairing their friendship, because they _were_ friends, for a long time, even if they haven’t been for a while. And Connor is lonely, Kevin knows. For the most part, he’s pretty certain that he’s at least done the other Elders a favour, because when Kevin flopped himself down on the sofa half in Connor’s lap and said “I want to watch Tarzan,” even though Connor is clearly picking between two movies that aren’t even Disney films, there was a definite collective sigh.

“You always want to watch Tarzan,” says Connor. “Which is ridiculous because it always makes you cry.”

But then Connor puts it on anyway, and Kevin definitely doesn’t sink lower in the sofa and snuggle into Connor’s side (okay, maybe he presses his nose to Connor’s shoulder once or twice, but that’s totally accidental). Elder Church hits Kevin’s leg in a way-to-go-buddy kind of way, which makes Kevin smile, which makes Connor give him a dirty look. In the end, the movie doesn’t make Kevin cry, but Connor does.

“It’s just,” says Connor. Everybody has wandered off, leaving Kevin and Connor with the couch to themselves. Connor is laid flat on his back, knees drawn up so his legs don’t dangle off. If either of them moved an inch, Connor’s head would be on Kevin’s lap. “Tarzan wasn’t like them, but he belonged with the gorillas anyway even though he was different, and they still loved him.” 

“And looked up to him,” says Kevin, daring to brush a floppy bit of Connor’s hair off his forehead. “He’s the leader by the end, you know.”

“Shut up,” says Connor, as mildly as you can tell somebody to shut up.

“And there were other people like Tarzan, too. He wasn’t the only human.”

Connor narrows his eyes.

“So I take it you’re Jane, then?”

“Suits my delicate sensibilities, don’t you think?”

“Kevin,” says Connor. “Jane leaves to go back to England.”

“No she doesn’t,” says Kevin. “You were snoring for the last five minutes. Jane stays, you idiot. They stay together in Africa.”

“Oh,” says Connor. “Right.”

Kevin watches Connor’s face twitch as he processes something. Kevin wants to say something stupid and regrettable _,_ but Connor seems to decide he’s had enough of this conversation before he opens his mouth. He swings his legs round so he’s sat back up, drawing their faces far too close. Connor’s eyes flicker down and Kevin licks his lips.

Arnold coughs pointedly somewhere in the background and Connor jumps away from him, hitting the small of his back on the arm rest.

“Good night,” Connor says to Kevin, scrambling to a standing position, his arms and legs too long and uncharacteristically clumsy. “Good night, Elders.”

“Good night, Elder McKinley,” says Kevin, trying to sound sure of himself.

“It’s only nine,” says Arnold, leaning on the back of the couch with his elbows and resting his chin on top of Kevin’s head.

“Yeah,” says Kevin. “I know.”

“You had a _moment,”_ says Arnold. “In front of everyone.”

“We did,” says Kevin, feeling pleased. “Was it embarrassing?”

“Only a little,” says Arnold, digging his chin and rubbing it painfully on the crown of Kevin’s head to annoy him. “Your love-sick puppy eyes mostly make me feel nauseous.”

It starts to get better, from there. Now Kevin and Connor seemed to have gotten over whatever-it-was that made Kevin punch him in his stupid nose, the Elders are so clearly pleased that things are starting to resemble some kind of normality that they start actually being nice to Kevin again. He’s pretty certain that Elder Michaels let him win playing rummy, but Kevin isn’t complaining.

So he gets cockier, starts to press his knees to Connor’s under the table. He may, or may not, brush his hand over the small of Connor’s back when they’re going somewhere. He drags Connor to Sunday School, because Arnold is helpfully off sick today – “he seemed _fine_ this morning, Elder” – and uses him as a prop in his retelling of Brigham Young’s battle against the Death Star, manhandling him in a way that is only a slip of the hand away from being inappropriate.

He starts leaning over Connor deliberately to get something from the cupboard when Connor is washing dishes. Connor narrows his eyes at him and says, “we are having soup, _Elder_ , what do you even need plates for?” and Kevin just smiles brightly at him. He considers dropping a kiss to Connor’s hairline. Next time, maybe.

On one particularly memorable occasion, he accidentally managed to get Connor to have what Arnold later referred to as a ‘sad, fake date’ at Afiya’s coffee stand. It had been a very long day, delivering newly-arrived copies of the Book of Arnold, and Kevin had stopped to get coffee on the way back and said, “well, Elder McKinley, you wouldn’t want one your Elders collapsing from exhaustion, would you?”

“I wouldn’t mind it all that much, actually,” but Kevin has already sat down. “Fine. I’m heading back to the hut.”

Connor returns around ten minutes later, looking red and flustered and _adorable_ , and sits down on the stool next to Kevin with a huff.

“Got lost, did you?” Connor answers with a withering look and Kevin’s lips twitch. He pushes a pre-paid for coffee to Connor. “Here, try some. It won’t kill you.”

Connor does drink it, and he says, “oh my _God_ this tastes like poison,” but he downs the whole cup anyway. It’s nice. It’s actually really nice, bickering with Connor is a way that isn’t loaded with their respective emotional baggage, or intentionally callous, or heavy-and-hot and will definitely lead to sex against a tree on the way home, or anything. Kevin tries not to be too pleased, because he basically held Connor hostage, but it’s not Kevin’s fault that Connor can’t see past the end of his nose and has an awful sense of direction.

He tries to hold Connor’s hand on the walk home, and he lets Kevin clutch his hand for a whole four seconds (Kevin counted) before he pulls it free with a glare. He pushes Kevin’s shoulder to put some distance between them, but Kevin is pretty certain it’s playful, so he’ll take it. When they get to the hut, Kevin fashions it so they’re stood awkwardly at the gate.

“Well, this is me!” says Kevin, brightly.

“Oh my God,” says Connor, running a hand over his face, and then the back of his neck.

“What,” says Kevin, “no goodnight kiss?”

“I hate you,” says Connor, with feeling, but his lips are twitching in a very telling way.

Kevin, filled with hot air and definitely not thinking properly, leans forward and kisses Connor on the corner of his mouth. He forgot that they weren’t alone, that all of their friends are inside, and any one of them could see. But from the dazed look on Connor’s face, he guesses Connor doesn’t care.

When Kevin recounts all of this to Arnold the next day, he is so proud of Kevin that he starts bouncing up and down on the bed.

“I’m so _happy_ ,” says Arnold, “you’re like a normal, functioning human being!”

Arnold crushes Kevin’s arms awkwardly in a hug. “Well, I mean. He may or may not have left the bathroom door open quite pointedly, and I may or may not have joined him in it, and well. I don’t really have to tell you what we may or may not have done –“

Arnold puts him at arm’s length and gives him a disgusted look. “Heavenly Father, can’t you keep it in your pants for like, two minutes?” Kevin shrugs, sheepishly. Apparently not. Still, they were getting somewhere.

***

When Connor slips his hand under Kevin’s shirt, and Kevin pulls them away, he finds a thrill tingle up his spine.

Connor actually whines. He whines!

“Shh,” says Kevin, against Connor’s lips, and he forces Connor to stand so they’re not touching other than Kevin’s hands on his wrists.

Connor looks entirely mystified and a little miffed. Kevin is pleased, overcome with the idea that maybe _Kevin_ has something that _Connor_ wants. Kevin mostly feels like a dog begging for scraps.

“What,” says Connor.

“Slower,” says Kevin. He didn’t think he’d be able to do this – and he’d never admit it, but Kevin and Arnold did spend forty-five minutes practicing what he was going to say – but at the look on Connor’s face, it’s going to be the easiest thing in the world.

“What do you mean, slower?” says Connor, affronted.

Kevin has always been a big believer of learning by doing, so he leans down, and kisses Connor. Without tongue.

“Slower,” says Kevin, again, and keeps Connor’s hands from wandering by gripping his wrists tighter. He leans in for another kiss, and brushes their mouths together and darts his tongue out to lick Connor’s lip. When Kevin pulls away, Connor looks both amused and petulant.

“Elder Price, stop being ridiculous.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Kevin, who is now nosing softly at Connor’s neck, placing loose, wet kisses there. “I guess we haven’t talked about it, so I don’t know what my boundaries are.”

Connor’s knees are practically _quivering_. Kevin is inordinately pleased with the sound Connor makes when Kevin sucks on a spot below his earlobe.

“Oh – Elder, stop it!” Kevin grazes his teeth, delighted that he’s found a new place to make Connor unravel. “We don’t. _Kevin_.” The way Connor says his name pulls Kevin back, makes him look at Connor. He looks frightened, and Kevin is startlingly turned on.

“Why not,” says Kevin, slowly sliding his hands up Connor’s back. “Why don’t we?”

“Because we _don’t_ ,” says Connor. “This isn’t how this works.”

“So let’s talk about it.”

Kevin stills as Connor does, matching his gaze.

“No,” says Connor. “I liked it before. Why are you doing this?”

“It’s not always about what you want,” says Kevin. “There’s actually a person connected to my dick, you know.”

Connor’s blush grows down his neck. Kevin stares at it.

“That’s not – I know that.”

“Do you?”

Connor looks at him, and Kevin tries to keep his face as open as possible, without letting any of the hurt he feels, has felt for a long time, unravel from its hard shell and turn the corners of his mouth down or show in his eyes.

“You’re being unreasonable,” says Connor, trying to hold his body as far away from Kevin as possible. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Kevin shrugs. “Talking about it doesn’t make it any more gay, you know.”

The look Connor gives him could wilt flowers. “Shut your mouth, Elder Price.”

“Do you even like me?” Kevin’s big mouth blurts.

“Does it matter?” says Connor. Kevin steps out of Connor’s personal space.

“It matters to me,” says Kevin. “I at least want the person whose dick I’m sucking to actually enjoy my company.”

“Oh, fuck off, Kevin. Not everything is about your ego.”

“Stop deflecting,” says Kevin. “Of course this is about me. This is about me and you, having sex, all the time, and how I actually like you a lot. And it’s not like you don’t know that, I know you know that, and it’s kind of unfair if you don’t like me back. Because then we’ll both have to admit that you’ve just been taking advantage of me this whole time and using my feelings to get your rocks off.”

Connor stares at him, and Kevin doesn’t like the look on his face.

“Elder Price –“

“You know what, I don’t want to hear it. I’m tired of you insulting me every time I try to be honest with you. What are you going to do, turn this into an argument where I end up pushing you against a wall and having sex with you anyway?”

“No,” says Connor, in a way that tells Kevin that was absolutely what he was going to do. He takes a deep breath.

“I don’t want to have sex with you anymore.”

Connor looks stung, and Kevin’s heart breaks a little bit.

“Kevin,” says Connor, but he doesn’t say anything else. Kevin wants Connor to fight for him. Kevin knows that Connor won’t.

Kevin does what he does best. He walks away.

***

It takes Connor four days of awkward silence after that until he stands up abruptly at dinner, disrupting the plates and cups, and says to the entire table: “Kevin Price, I would like to take you on a date.”

It is completely silent. Connor and Kevin stare at each other until Arnold elbows him in his side and Kevin blurts out, “Yes, yes please.”

“Good,” says Connor, and sits back down.

“Good,” agrees Kevin, and pretends his insides aren’t squirming around and making him feel slightly sick, in a good way. “Anyone want more rice?”

Kevin makes a mental note to write some kind of card or even bake a cake for Elder Church when he happily takes the bowl off Kevin, even though he has very clearly got a full portion on his plate already.

A date. Connor wants to take him on a date! Kevin would do a little victory dance if he wasn’t surrounded by people, including the person who wants to take him on the aforementioned date.

And Connor asked him in front of everyone, which apart from being horrifically embarrassing (he knows that Arnold will never let him forget the exact shade of beetroot he must be right now), is downright incredible. It means that Connor can’t take it back, which leads Kevin to believe that he doesn’t think he will want to take it back.

Unless maybe he will and this was an impulsive move and he didn’t really mean it. Connor will avoid him until they get into an argument about it, and that will inevitably lead to sex, and that will leave Kevin in exactly the same position as he was before. And, well, Kevin is well aware of what he looks like, and maybe Connor really was just using him as a springboard to let out ten years of sexual repression all along and he’s not quite finished getting it out of his system and it’s not like there’s a whole lot of options for the recipients of experimental gay sex in fucking Uganda. Oh, God. Kevin’s rice feels like mushy cardboard in his mouth.

And it’s not Kevin will say no, what with his persistent disregard of the concept of delayed gratification. His whole life was about the ultimate delayed gratification, really, and he’s spent the last year learning to live in the moment, and those moments have generally been related to Connor or Connor’s hands or Connor’s mouth.

And worst of all, what if it does work out and Kevin gets his happy ending, and then they leave Uganda and the spell is broken and they move back to America and Connor realises there are other men out there and Connor falls in love with them instead and Kevin is sad and alone forever? No, no – worst of all is if when they leave, Connor decides to go back to the Church and turns it all off again and then both of them are sad and alone forever.

It takes Kevin a moment to come back to himself, and he finds that he has been staring at Connor with his mouth open, still filled with half-chewed food. Connor, who is watching Kevin out of the corner of his eye, twitches his lips into a wry smile and kicks him under the table when he closes his mouth. It really hurts, and it makes Kevin feel a little better.

He’s vaguely aware that Arnold is chattering away somewhere, but Kevin can’t hear him over the thoughts rushing through his head. Kevin still remembers, still thinks about it all the time, how Connor pushed him away and said he had just been lonely. He’s aware that every time they kiss, it very well might be the last, because Connor could freak out any day and dump him without much warning. And now he’s faced with the idea that maybe he might actually get to keep Connor McKinley, and Kevin is sort of freaking out about it.

Kevin feels that icy, frozen feeling in his chest, working up his throat and restricting his breathing. This is so _stupid_. Kevin got what he wanted. Kevin should be happy. Kevin is happy! Kevin just got asked out on a date by the person who he has been halfway in love with since forever, Kevin is surrounded by pretty much everyone he likes in the world, Kevin is trapped between seven other Elders pressed against each other round the table and he would really like to not do this right now.

Kevin feels a pressure on his toes. He’s freaked out for a second before he realises that it’s just Connor, pressing his foot against Kevin’s. When he looks up, he finds Elder McKinley resting his chin on his hand, seemingly engrossed in a conversation with Elder Davis and Elder Michaels.

He’s grateful that the others are acting like nothing unusual has happened, as Arnold chirps merrily next to him about the unusual things that he saw at the market last week, and Elder Thomas laments the postal delay this month as he’s run out of Poptarts. The dinner finishes as normal. The only difference today is that none of the Elders hang around in the front room, all feigning tiredness until Kevin and Connor are the only two left standing. They’re still sat at the dinner table, Connor with his chin resting on his interlinked fingers and his elbows on the table.

“Hi,” says Kevin, feeling scrutinised.

“Hello,” says Elder McKinley, in his mildest voice.

“Um,” says Kevin. He can feel panic rising in his chest again. He doesn’t know what say. Which is horrifying, because maybe this is why Connor didn’t want to date him in the first place, because all the fun has been sucked out of their relationship with Kevin’s greedy need for _more, more, more._ What’s exciting about holding hands or coffee dates or kissing on the couch with no purpose anyway?

“Stop thinking,” Connor says. Kevin can’t stop staring at him, which is horrible, because Kevin can’t stand the annoyed look on his face. This is so stupid.

“Make me,” says Kevin. Connor smiles.

“What do you need to hear?” he says.

“I don’t know,” says Kevin. His cheeks feel too hot.

“Well,” says Connor. He shifts his line of sight so he’s looking somewhere vaguely near Kevin’s earlobe. “You’re an idiotic brat, but you’re my idiotic brat. I spent a very long time convincing myself that I didn’t have feelings for you but then you kept being a soppy drama queen and how was I not supposed to fall halfway in love with Kevin Price, anyway?”

Kevin doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t quite know the answer Connor is looking for.

“You’re just so confusing. One day you hate me and the next day you’re running out into a freaking storm for me. I tried to kiss you but you backed off and then a month later you kiss me anyway. You tell me you like me, then you punch me in the face. We have sex but it’s not enough. You want to date, I ask you out, and you’re clearly putting off a meltdown. What exactly is it that you want, Elder Price?”

Kevin thinks that Connor is being a little unfair.

“Elder McKinley,” Kevin starts, and then pauses. He knows what the two of them are like, and he has to choose his words carefully. They’re so close to a happy ending. “You acted so hard done by whenever we argued even though you started enough fights yourself. You let me kiss you but act disgusted the next time I try and do it. You lied to me. You - you do things like hold my hand and, and, freaking stargaze with me, and dance with me in front of everyone, and then turn around and act surprised that I might have wilfully participated in those activities. You give me a blowjob but won’t talk to me. You have very gay sex with me and then tell yourself you’re not. You are - you are the most irritating person I can think of.”

Connor is eyeing him warily.

“That’s fair,” he says, like he’s working on a group project at school and they’re having a discussion about how to approach the next step.

“You let me trail after you,” Kevin says. “For months.”

“I know,” says Connor. “I didn’t know what I wanted.”

“So, what. You were keeping me on ice, just in case?”

“I guess,” Connor sighs. He looks at Kevin again, and he thinks that Connor might want to tell him something with his eyes, but Kevin can’t figure it out.

“Was it worth it?” Kevin asks. “Are you calling in your just in case?”

Connor looks at him like he might be crazy. He probably is.

“I just asked you on a date in front of everybody. What do you think?”

“I thought maybe you didn’t really mean it. That you just wanted me to have sex with you again because, because I’m the only other person around who you can have sex with.”

“Just how low is your self-esteem, Kevin Price?” says Connor. Kevin feels very small.

“I guess you really did a number on me.”

“I think you’re the most handsome boy I’ve ever met,” says Connor. He’s still staring at him across the table.

“I know,” Kevin laments. “That’s the point.”

“Oh - oh, come here,” says Connor, but Kevin stays put. Connor sighs and stands up, then moves around the table to he’s stood in front of Kevin. He frames Kevin’s face with his hands, leans down, and kisses him. It’s a nice kiss. “You really, truly are an idiot.”

“But what does this -”

“Shut up, Elder Price,” Connor says. He slowly, alarmingly, lowers himself so he’s sat on Kevin’s lap. The insides of his legs are pressed to the outside of Kevin’s and he drapes his arms over Kevin’s shoulders.

“You ruined everything,” says Connor, and kisses him again, and then once more with feeling. “I was a straight, good young Mormon with a promising future. I was going to go excel as District Leader and then go to BYU and wait until marriage and have kids. My parents would have been so proud of me.”

“I’m sorry,” says Kevin.

“Oh, please,” says Connor, waving his hand in that way that he does. “I’m not a Mormon anymore. There are plenty of other colleges with better programmes. Marriage is overrated. Kids freak me out. I was never straight to begin with. And, well, now I definitely think waiting until marriage is just a lost opportunity.”

They’re quiet for a moment as Kevin lets the admission sink in. Connor has revealed more of himself in the past five minutes than he has in over a year.

“What do we do now?”

“Well,” says Connor, smiling down at him a little. “Now we do things properly. We’ll go on dates and we won’t have sex until after the third one. You’ll take me to see an R-rated movie and I’ll pretend that my sheltered, Mormon upbringing has made me all scared so you’ll make out with me in the back row. We’ll make gooey eyes at each other to annoy everyone. We’ll go back to America together and do all of the things we missed out on. You can finally find out if Starbucks is overrated or not. We’ll go to classes and help each other with homework, and, we’ll go to parties and make friends who have never even stepped foot in a Church. We’ll have sex in an actual bed, with a lock on the door, and be as loud or as quiet as we feel like being. We can be normal. If you want.”

And Kevin wants.

“Yeah,” he says. “That sounds alright, I guess,” and shrugs. Connor slaps his shoulder.

“You like me,” says Connor. “You want me to be your – your boyfriend.”

“Obviously,” says Kevin. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for months. You just haven’t been listening.”

Connor grins and it makes Kevin’s stomach twist.

“Sorry about that. Hard to hear you with your dick in my mouth.”

Kevin pulls a face. “That’s horrible.”

“No, it’s not,” says Connor. He looks like the cat that got the cream, and licked the bowl clean. “Oh, gosh. Elder Price. Sometimes I think I made you up.”

Kevin’s face burns. Connor rubs his nose against his in a sloppy Eskimo kiss. When Kevin kisses him for real, Connor makes a happy noise that makes Kevin smile against his mouth.

“You know, Arnold says we make him feel nauseous.”

“Good,” says Connor. “Let them all puke, I don’t care. I deserve this one. They owe me.”

Kevin lets Connor kiss him until the sun has set all the way, and then a little after that, too. Elder Church turns on the light switch, says ‘Oh my God, why are you sat in the dark?’ and stumbles into the corner of the table.

“Ow,” he says. Then he looks up and gives them a dirty look. “Oh, get a room.”

Connor leads Kevin out of the door by the hand, same as ever, and kicks Elder Church as he walks past.

Kevin lays awake with Connor snuffling against his back, and he wonders if they had been in a different time, a different place, Elder Price would have ended up kissing Elder McKinley to sleep.

***

“Don’t be a baby,” says Connor. Kevin grits his teeth and glares at him.

“You’re very rude for a Mormon.”

Connor is leaning against the Church, arms crossed, one foot resting flat on the wall. He’s wearing a very distracting vest. He gives Kevin his best missionary smile. Kevin feels dizzy.

“You barely have your feet off the floor.”

“Elder McKinley,” says Kevin. His head is spinning. “I hate this.”

There’s a large tree behind the Church. Kevin is about one eighth of the way up. If he stretched his leg out, his toes would brush the floor.

“You look ridiculous,” Connor tells him.

“Good job nobody is watching, then.”

Kevin experimentally reaches for a large branch above him. It seems sturdy, so he works his way up.

“Ooh,” says Connor. From this distance, Kevin can still see him wiggle his eyebrows. “I do like my men strong and brave.”

“That’s not helping,” says Kevin. “I don’t feel very brave.”

“Of course you are,” says Connor. “You’re at least a quarter of the way up, now. Very risky of you.”

“Why are you being so mean to me,” says Kevin, and winces.

“See,” says Connor. “Big baby.”

“I can’t do it,” says Kevin, and looks directly forward because if he looks down he might vomit and if he looks up he might pass out.

Connor moves over so he’s closer to Kevin, hands on his hips as he looks up at him.

“Elder Price,” says Connor. “I didn’t think I could build a Church, but you told me I could do anything, and would you look at that,” he gestures over to the handmade, rickety building. “So here I am. Telling you that you can do anything.”

“Okay,” says Kevin, and scrunches his eyes up. “I can do anything.”

So he climbs. It hurts his arms and he has to stop twice so he doesn’t stop breathing.

“My Grandma could do it faster,” Connor half-yells at him.

“Why are you like this,” Kevin half-yells back.

“Tough love,” says Connor.

So Kevin keeps climbing, and climbing, because once he’s started he’s sort of afraid to stop and it’s easier to watch his arms move than it is to look down.

“What if I fall?”

“You won’t,” says Connor, decisively. Kevin decides to believe him.

He makes it to the first long, sturdy branch and crawls over it. He’s aware that he looks like an idiot but Connor has seen Kevin naked more than once, and he’s pretty certain this looks less weird than Kevin does when they’re – and anyway, Kevin is concentrating on _not dying_.

Kevin swings his legs over to he’s straddling the tree, and grips it with both hands.

“You did it!” Connor shouts. “I didn’t think you would actually do it.”

“Ye of little faith,” says Kevin, and even though his body feels tense and alert, his brain has wandered off somewhere and he feels relaxed and kind of nice. “This isn’t so bad.”

“Of course it isn’t,” says Connor, beaming up at him from below. Kevin touches the scars on his wrist.

Kevin smiles back, and then looks up.

“Oh,” says Kevin. “It’s actually really nice up here.”

He’s much higher up than he anticipated, but that’s sort of okay, because he can see across the whole village. He can see the sun starting to set in the distance and everything looks very pink and magical. He can see little people moving, and the campfire, and the mountains and hundreds of acres of nothing but varying shades of green.

He looks back down at Connor, with his hands on his hips, and his stupid goofy smile, and his freckles and his weird long nose and his crooked tooth. He feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest when he looks at him.

“Do you need help getting down?”

“No,” says Kevin. “I think I’m going to stay up here for a while. You should come up, too.”

“That’s okay,” says Connor. “Maybe next time. This is your moment. Enjoy it.”

Kevin forgets all about the sticky hole, forgets about his parents, forgets the passages of scripture that drum through his head, stops thinking about all the things that could go wrong after they go home, stops thinking altogether, and enjoys the view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end guys! Five months of my life finally published online. Thank you all so much for the love so far! I apologise for not replying to you all but please know I've read and reread every comment and they give me butterflies.
> 
> I don't usually ask for r&r's, but my blood, sweat and tears went into this guy, so if you read it all and enjoyed it and feel like clicking that kudos button (or even leave a comment...!) I will be forever in your debt.
> 
> Much love to you all, and thank you for reading 45k of my bullshit magnum opus.
> 
> Please follow me/send me a message on tumblr @neverbirds!!


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